‘The number of incursions was something that was alarming to me.’
A large number of drone incursions are happening at the U.S.–Mexico border, a U.S. Department of Defense official said on March 14.
“It’s my understanding, there’s been a lot of drone incursions along our southern border. How many drone incursions have we had, and what are they doing?” Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) asked Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot during a Senate hearing.
Gen. Guillot replied, “I don’t know the actual number—I don’t think anybody does—but it’s in the thousands.”
He later noted that there are likely more than 1,000 incursions happening at the border per month.
The general, who became commander of the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in February, said he recently spoke with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Department of Justice officials and learned about the surprising number of incursions.
Are the incursions a defense threat to the homeland?
“They alarm me from being the person responsible for homeland defense,” Gen. Guillot said. “I haven’t seen any of them manifest in a threat to the level of national defense, but I see the potential only growing.”
NORAD is a U.S. and Canadian organization whose work includes “the detection, validation, and warning of attack against North America whether by aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles, through mutual support arrangements with other commands.” NORTHCOM leads the military’s homeland defense efforts.
The hearing was held by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The subject of Mexican military incursions at the border did not come up.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the committee, inquired as to whether military base commanders were equipped with standard operating procedures in dealing with unmanned aircraft.
“The services do have authorities, but work remains to be done to ensure that … we have standardized operating procedures to address those threats,” Gen. Guillot said. “And also work remains to be done to be able to use especially the non-kinetic capabilities that can bring down those systems safely, without interfering with our airspace structure.”
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