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Two U.S. government officials and a member of Congress pushed back on Wednesday on Trump administration claims about the reasons for the sudden closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas.
After the Federal Aviation Administration quickly rescinded an order to ground flights for 10 days, Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, and other Trump administration officials claimed that a Mexican drug cartel drone incursion prompted the shutdown. “The threat has been neutralized,” Duffy said. “Mexican cartel drones breached U.S. airspace. The Department of War took action to disable the drones,” another Trump administration official told The Intercept.
But two government officials with knowledge of the reasons for the shutdown say the closure was connected to the Department of War’s new counter-drone laser technology and a misunderstanding by — or miscommunication with — FAA headquarters of the risks it might pose to air traffic in and around El Paso.
The government officials told The Intercept that the counter-drone laser system near Fort Bliss was tested this week. One official said a cartel drone may have been damaged or disabled by the new system. Another said that a Mylar party balloon was destroyed. The incidents appeared to be different events.
Cartel drone activity isn’t unusual along the border, the sources said. The situation, as they described it, never constituted a threat.
“There was not a threat, which is why the FAA lifted this restriction so quickly.”
Asked if the closure stemmed from testing of counter-drone technology near Fort Bliss, a Department of War spokesperson said: “We have nothing further to provide.”
During a call with reporters on Wednesday morning, Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents Texas’ 16th Congressional District in El Paso, also said that drone activity is frequent in the area and in this case did not pose a danger.
“There was not a threat, which is why the FAA lifted this restriction so quickly,” Escobar said. “There was nothing extraordinary about any drone incursion into the U.S. that I’m aware of.”
Escobar emphasized that she had been in communication with Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. — the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee — who she said had received the same information. Escobar added: “If there were any incursion that would have posed a threat, the Armed Services Committee would have been made aware, and that would have been shared with me in my conversation with the ranking member this morning.”
Smith’s office did not return a request for comment prior to publication.
Late Tuesday night, the FAA announced it would halt all flights for 10 days due to “special security reasons,” surprising Escobar and other state and local officials. The shutdown went into effect at 11:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday and was lifted a little before 7 a.m. on Wednesday. “The temporary closure of airspace over El Paso has been lifted. There is no threat to commercial aviation,” the FAA announced on X on Wednesday morning. “All flights will resume as normal.”
Escobar made the point that the closure order came from Washington, not local authorities or reigonal air traffic control. “I want to emphasize that this was an FAA decision,” she said. “It was their decision. There was no information provided to me or my office, no information or advance notice provided to the airport or to the city of El Paso, which is the municipality that operates the airport.”
