Scrutiny over US claim that Mexican drone invasion prompted airport closure

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her Government has no reports of criminal drones operating on the border with the US, as Washington has claimed. Photo / Alfredo Estrella, AFP

The closure of a Texas airport has triggered conflicting explanations. The United States Government claimed an incursion by Mexican cartel drones, but lawmakers and media reports suggested the Pentagon’s use of anti-drone technology was to blame.

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

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion”, adding: “The threat has been neutralised.”

But Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes El Paso, questioned the Trump Administration’s explanation, saying it was “not what we in Congress have been told”.

Reports emerged later across US media that the federal Government’s own testing of anti-drone technology, at an air base abutting the El Paso International Airport, prompted the decision to close the entire area to all civilian flights.

Citing government sources, CBS said the FAA shut the airspace amid a dispute over whether it was safe to test the technology so close to the airport.

National Public Radio reported that the Defense Department had deployed the technology before the FAA could complete a safety assessment, prompting the sudden closure.

The Wall Street Journal, which with CBS reported the device is a type of laser, said the Pentagon recently used the tech to shoot down what it thought was a drone in the area. It turned out to be a party balloon, sources told the broadsheet daily.

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

US authorities had threatened to shoot down planes that violated the closure of the airspace.

‘Does not add up’

“The information coming from the Administration does not add up, and it’s not the information that I was able to gather overnight and this morning,” Escobar told journalists today.

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

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.

Donald Trump’s Administration insists it is effectively at war with “narco-terrorists”, carrying out lethal 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.

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.

– Agence France-Presse