Texas legislature evaluating ways to support law enforcement fighting cartel drones

Presiding over the hearing, state Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, said, “drone technology continues to evolve and has become increasingly accessible to both legitimate users and bad actors. Criminal organizations and hostile actors are using drones to conduct surveillance, transport contraband, and threaten critical infrastructure and public safety. Our goal is to evaluate whether current state laws and enforcement authorities are sufficient to address these emerging threats.”

The cartels increasingly used drones during the Biden administration to direct scouts, coyotes and illegal border crossers and track law enforcement movement. In early 2023, more than 10,000 drone incursions were reported operated by Mexican cartels in Mexico and in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, Border Patrol found, The Center Square reported. 

In far west Texas, El Paso Police Department Sgt. Cory Balke said the cartel drone threat is organized and dangerous. “Primarily where we’re seeing [increased drone activity] in Ciudad Juarez, is very organized,” he said. “The threat is very high, and they are very capable. They are just as good at what they do as we are with what we do.”

El Paso is a major human smuggling corridor located directly across the Rio Grande River from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, one of the most violent places in the world. The Juárez Cartel and street gangs associated with it, La Línea and Bario Azteca, have been warring with the Sinaloa Cartel for control of multi-billion-dollar human trafficking and drug trade there, The Center Square reported. The city is also known for the targeted murder of women. Over the past 30 years, more than 2,300 women have been murdered there, according to multiple reports.

Over the years, Border Patrol and the FBI have issued a series of warnings to Americans in the El Paso area related to human smuggling, human trafficking, kidnapping and stash houses, The Center Square reported.

The cartels are using “the exact same drones that we use,” Balke said. “They have $30,000 drones. They can recognize somebody at a mile [and] can track a moving vehicle.” 

So far, the El Paso Police Department has tracked 1,776 drone cross-border infiltrations, he said. These only include drones that have what is referred to as digital license plates. Drones that run on electric motors and don’t emit a signal can’t be tracked, he added.

“When we look at other signatures from radars and some of the sensors that we saw come across the border,” he said, the number was closer to 14,000. Texas law enforcement are also seeing a range of drone technology being used, from $500 small drones to $60,000 six-propped agricultural drones capable of carrying a duffel bag, “capable of moving 200 kilograms of whatever item it wants to at a time,” he said.

He recommended that the legislature create greater authorities at the local level as well as training and funding for drone programs and counter surveillance.  

“We need more jurisdiction,” Balke said. “We need more authorities at the local level. Having a drone program is also a very good start to a counter-drone program.”

Last year, Congress passed the SAFER SKIES Act to authorize and facilitate training for law enforcement to conduct counter-drone operations nationwide, including learning how to disrupt or disable drones without interfering with aviation. So far, only 61 officers nationwide have become certified through the program, Dr. Michael McGee, a drone technology specialist, who testified before the committee, said. 

He warned that the cartels could use drones as a weapon to target law enforcement and critical infrastructure similarly to how they’re being used overseas. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in March alone “more than 90% of Russian combat losses, roughly 34,000 troops in a month, were caused by drones,” he said. In one day in April, he said Ukraine drones “inflicted more than 1,000 of Russia’s 1,300 casualties.” 

McGee also raised the issue of terrorism ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack. “Our next 9/11 is coming. The question is whether Texas builds the defenses before it arrives,” he said. "I don't think we have had a threat like this, at least in my lifetime, that this extensive, incredible technology is available to everybody." 

In the conflict with Iran, an Iranian businessman living in Massachusetts was recently convicted of exporting technology to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It used it in a drone attack against a U.S. Army base in Jordan, killing three U.S. service members.

The U.S. military used three sea drones to strike an Iranian naval base last month, marking the first time the United States has used this type of technology in combat. In June, it used drone technology to rescue downed U.S. Apache helicopter pilots near the Strait of Hormuz. 

On Friday, the Department of War launched its first-ever Multinational Attack Drone Task Force and a new unit, Task Force Falcon Strike. They will be deploying “one-way attack drones consisting of unmanned systems from above, on and below the sea.”

Nine months ago, the first Task Force Scorpion Strike was launched, the U.S. military's first dedicated one-way attack drone squadron in the Middle East.