US says Mexican cartel drones breached Texas airspace

The Mexican government has no reports of criminal drones operating on the border with the United States, as Washington has claimed, President Claudia Sheinbaum said on February 11, 2026. Photo / Alfredo Estrella, AFP

Mexican drug cartel drones entered US airspace but were countered by American forces, US officials have said, explaining the brief but mysterious closure of El Paso airport in Texas.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said late on Tuesday that the airspace over the Texas metropolis would be shut to all aircraft for 10 days, citing unspecified national “security reasons”, only to lift the closure after less than 24 hours.

The report of a drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats, and could provide a pretext for President Donald Trump to follow through on his threats to expand the strikes to land.

Trump has specifically threatened to attack cartels inside Mexico.

The FAA and the Defence Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion”, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X, adding: “The threat has been neutralised, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”

A US administration official, meanwhile, said the breach was by “Mexican cartel drones”, and that US forces “took action to disable the drones”, without specifying how they did so.

But top Democratic lawmakers from the House Committee on Transportation suggested the Pentagon may have been responsible for the situation, saying that language in defence policy legislation allowed the US military to “act recklessly in the public airspace”.

The lawmakers called for a solution that ensures that “the Department of Defense will not jeopardise safety and disrupt the freedom to travel”.

US media reported that the El Paso airport closure may have been the result of US military drones or anti-drone testing rather than a cartel threat.

War against ‘narco-terrorists’

The Pentagon referred questions on the closure to the FAA, which said when it announced the move that “no pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas” covered by the restrictions and warned of potentially “deadly force” if aircraft were deemed a threat.

It updated its guidance on Wednesday morning, saying on X that the closure was lifted.

El Paso has a population of about 700,000 and is one of the 25 largest cities in the United States. Almost 3.5 million passengers passed through the airport between January and November 2025, according to data on its website.

Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with alleged “narco-terrorists”, carrying out strikes on alleged traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, while the US President has repeatedly said he plans to expand the strikes to land.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum opposes US military intervention in her country but has so far managed to negotiate a fine diplomatic line with Trump.

She has stepped up the extradition of cartel leaders to the United States and reinforced border co-operation amid tariff threats from Trump, for whom curbing illegal migration from Mexico was a key election promise.

Sheinbaum told a news conference Wednesday that she had “no information on the use of drones at the border”, but that her Government was investigating the airport closure.

The United States began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in September, a campaign that has killed at least 130 people and destroyed dozens of vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

US officials have not provided definitive evidence that the vessels are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations, which experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.

Trump also ordered a special forces raid in Caracas at the beginning of January to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington accused of leading a drug cartel.

- Agence France-Presse