The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded flights in and out of El Paso International Airport for "special security reasons" on Wednesday after the Pentagon allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser.
The original notice referred to a 10-day restriction, but it was rescinded the same day and flights resumed within a few hours. Still, the Associated Press notes it is unusual for an entire airport to shut down even for a short time.
Some say the incident hints a lack of communication between the FAA and the Pentagon, but the Trump administration insists the agencies were in lockstep to protect national security.
Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy has revealed that the FAA and the Department of Defense had acted to address a cartel drone incursion, neutralizing the threat before reopening the airspace.
"The drug cartels that are stationed in Mexico have found that getting their drugs through the seas and on land isn't working all that well, and so they've started to escalate their use of drones," explains Bob Maginnis, president of Maginnis Strategies, LLC.
Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose congressional district covers an area that stretches about 800 miles along Texas' border with Mexico, says cartel drone sightings are common.
“For any of us who live and work along the border, daily drone incursions by criminal organizations is everyday life for us," he said in response to the shutdown. "It's a Wednesday for us."
Maginnis believes this escalation calls for immediate action from President Donald Trump.
"You basically have an air war that is being propagated along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, and that's a different proposition than what we've handled up to now," the defense analyst observes.
Meanwhile, several anti-drone countermeasures are available.
"You have lasers. You have certainly EW (electronic warfare) capabilities for confusing drones," Maginnis lists. "You do have some kinetic capabilities other than lasers. We have systems on ships and some on the ground that can shoot them down."
The ground border has dominated debate for years, but now, Maginnis says the airspace above it needs more "arming up."
