The unexpected and ultimately short-lived flight ban near El Paso this week stemmed from disagreements within the federal government over the use of a high-energy laser weapon system to take down drones, multiple sources told CBS News.
After training by the U.S. military, Customs and Border Protection used a palletized high-energy laser system earlier this week, even though the Federal Aviation Administration still has safety concerns, according to sources who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the matter.
The system CBP used has been deployed overseas, according to two of the sources, but had not been considered for regular domestic use until recently. The system works by detecting an aerial threat, emitting a laser beam that can quickly zero in on the target, like a drone, and the beam’s heat damages or disables the object.
High-energy lasers are one of several systems the government could use to counter drones.
“The laser, of course, is essentially instantaneous, and so it’s relatively easy for something that’s doing the speed of light to hit exactly the point on the object that it wants to do,” said Tom Karako, a senior fellow and the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for International and Strategic Studies.
After Wednesday’s flight restriction was lifted, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said “the threat has been neutralized” by the FAA and praised the Pentagon, which he said “acted swiftly to address a cartel incursion.” But the Pentagon said it had nothing to add when asked when or how the threat was eliminated.
While CBP thought it was targeting foreign drones with the high-energy laser, it turned out to have taken down at least one party balloon, multiple sources told CBS News.
Drones near the border are not new and have been a steady problem over several years, particularly those used by cartels.
“The cartel drone problem is pervasive across the U.S. southern border,” according to Austin Doctor, who is an associate professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the director of strategic initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center.
The cartels and affiliates are primarily using drones for surveillance purposes “to support their other illegal criminal activities, including smuggling of narcotics, smuggling of persons, firearms, and other illicit goods,” Doctor told CBS News.
They have not used weaponized drones inside the U.S., he said, but are using them inside of Mexico to target rival cartels, prompting fears they could eventually start to use the drones to threaten U.S. personnel or infrastructure.
The activity near the border, combined with the mysterious sightings near military installations, like Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia in 2023 and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey in 2024, contributed to the Pentagon’s establishment of a joint task force to counter drones.
The task force coordinates between federal agencies on what authorities to use in specific scenarios and how to mitigate any threat from drones.
The task force is “doing great things,” said retired Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, who served as the commander of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD from 2020 to 2024.
“But there’s so much more to be done,” VanHerck said in a phone interview. “They need to be empowered to get the right policy in place for who defends what specific critical infrastructure with what specific capability,” he said. “And the challenges become ensuring you’re able to defend while also maintaining safety of flight for general and aviation aircraft and the public in general, depending on what capability you utilize to engage the threat.”
There are a variety of capabilities “but no silver bullet for countering drones,” VanHerck added.
He favors a layered system of defense with a foundation of radio frequency cyber techniques that can disrupt and take over the drone to bring it down safely. According to VanHerck, field experience from around the world shows that over 80% of drones encountered are commercial and can be brought down with this type of technology.
Other layers would rely on different systems that could include high-energy lasers.
Karako of CSIS said defending the southern border from drones is one piece of the larger puzzle that President Trump’s Golden Dome initiative is about — to defend the homeland from all air and missile threats.
“Maybe the lesson here ought to be that this big effort, this big initiative coming down the pipe that is called Golden Dome will require and force us out of necessity to have better communication and better coordination between the very necessary FAA function for air traffic control and air traffic management, the coordination between the FAA function and the DOD national security function,” Karako said.
