The threat from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operated by transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, along the Mexico-United States border is clear and growing, a senior U.S. official told Congress in July 2025. “Nearly every day, transnational criminal organizations use drones to convey illicit narcotics and contraband across U.S. borders and to conduct hostile surveillance of law enforcement,” Steven Willoughby, acting director of the Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Management Office in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. It was only a matter of time, Willoughby said, before TCOs would deploy UAS, also known as drones, to attack U.S. law enforcement or military targets.
Willoughby used data to back up his stark assertions. In the last six months of 2024, more than 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters of the U.S. southern border, operating nearly 60,000 unique flights, the majority of which were conducted at night or at restricted altitudes, he said. The growing potential of TCO-directed UAS crossing the border between Mexico and the U.S. has drawn the attention of U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), which is charged with homeland defense. Its sister command in Colorado Springs, Colorado, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), is responsible for providing “continental detection, validation, warning and aerospace control” of airborne threats to North America, including unmanned aircraft systems, according to its website. In March 2024, USNORTHCOM and NORAD Commander Gen. Gregory M. Guillot told another Senate committee that at least 1,000 unauthorized drone incursions occur along the border each month. Guillot said the rate of drone activity along the border alarmed him when he assumed command in early 2024.
Cartels direct a lot of that traffic. During the last six months of 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, along with other agencies, seized more than 544 kilograms of fentanyl, methamphetamine and other narcotics transported by UAS, Willoughby said. The marked upswing in activity, he testified, is a “clear indicator that TCOs are adopting the use of drones into their tactics as a means of surveilling and evading CBP agents and officers and other law enforcement.”
Since the end of 2024, much has changed along the 3,145-kilometer land border. In January 2025, the U.S. government declared a national emergency at the border after several years of record levels of illegal migration. The order blamed TCO activities that include drug and human trafficking, environmental degradation and extortion — practiced by the Mexican cartels — for much of the disorder. Shortly afterward, the U.S. government designated eight TCOs as foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs. The designation included six Mexican cartels and criminal organizations in Venezuela and El Salvador. The State Department added a further five Latin American TCOs to the FTO list in 2025.
Part of the executive order addressed UAS activity. It directed the secretary of transportation and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to consider waiving all Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and FCC regulations or policies that hinder the DHS from countering drones within 8 kilometers of the southern border.
The deployment of active duty troops to the southern border has brought key resources to the fight against cartel drones. U.S. Soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division were deployed to Arizona in February 2025 to set up ground-based radar installations to detect low-flying drones. “The team’s primary role is to operate ground-based radars and feed critical intelligence to U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” stated a USNORTHCOM news release.
Soldiers operated two types of radar originally developed for the battlefield: the AN/TPQ-53 Quick Reaction Capability Radar, used to identify the origin and impact points of indirect fire such as rockets and mortars, and the AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar system, which tracks low-flying aircraft and drone activity across wide areas. The systems have been adapted for homeland defense, the release stated. The unit’s mission is clear. “We’re defending both the American public and the American way of life,” the radar platoon’s leader, U.S. Army Capt. Christopher McNamara, said in the release. “Using these systems to detect illegal activity ensures the border stays sealed, and the status quo is maintained. But really, I think our team’s primary motivation is helping to save lives and make America safer.” The approximately 10,000 U.S. troops stationed along the border — Mexico has roughly the same number providing security on the other side — also have provided a deterrent. The U.S. Army’s Stryker Brigade, a mobile, quick-reaction mechanized unit equipped with monitoring and surveillance technology, further increases domain awareness of TCO-operated UAS.
Mexico also has bolstered its counter-UAS (c-UAS) capabilities. The Secretariat of National Defense (DEFENSA) announced in May 2025 that it was spending $86 million to buy advanced technology to deter attacks by drone or mines on Mexican security forces. The c-UAS technology will be deployed in a military region including the states of Aguascalientes, Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit and Zacatecas. In April 2025, DEFENSA announced the formation of a drone squadron to detect, monitor and defend against cartel activity in Michoacán.
Mexico also fostered a technological partnership between the Mexican Air Force’s Research and Technological Development Group and the Aeronautical University in Querétaro and the Center for Research in Optics. Public universities near Military Air Base No. 1 in Mexico state also are involved in the development of a national drone production program to help Mexico combat cartels with its own drone hardware and operating systems.
Senior U.S. military officials told Congress in April 2025 that Mexican cartels were stepping up the use of UAS for smuggling and, even more troubling, for monitoring U.S. troops on the border. “We know that cartels have used [UAS] for unauthorized surveillance to assess our troop size, our movements, to solicit and enable attacks from other vectors. We know that they have used drones for kinetic attacks,” said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Paul Spedero Jr., Joint Chiefs of Staff vice director for operations, in testimony before the House Military and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on April 29.
Mexican cartels also have used drones to attack rival TCOs and Mexican security forces. The extreme violence perpetrated by TCOs makes drones an inexpensive and lethal tool to intimidate and control civilians and endanger security forces. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of those designated as an FTO, is regarded as a pioneer in using drones to attack criminal enemies. The Sinaloa Cartel, another FTO, attacked Mexican Army and National Guard troops in separate incidents in January and February 2025, killing a National Guardsman and injuring two Soldiers.
Guillot testified before the House Armed Services Committee in April 2025 that it was crucial to modify the rules of engagement along the border to defend U.S. troops from UAS threats. It would “allow us to shoot down or bring down drones that are surveilling over our deployed and mobile troops … not just that are in self-defense, but anything that’s surveilling and planning the next attack on us within five miles of the border,” Guillot said, according to The War Zone, a military affairs website.
In June 2025, the U.S. government published an executive order outlining the new rules of engagement for counter-drone measures. Titled “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty,” the document states that “immediate action is needed to ensure American sovereignty over its skies” and outlines the UAS threat to the U.S. homeland.
“Criminals, terrorists, and hostile foreign actors have intensified their weaponization of these technologies, creating new and serious threats to our homeland,” the order stated. “Drug cartels use UAS to smuggle fentanyl across our borders, deliver contraband into prisons, surveil law enforcement, and otherwise endanger the public. Mass gatherings are vulnerable to disruptions and threats by unauthorized UAS flights. Critical infrastructure, including military bases, is subject to frequent — and often unidentified — UAS incursions.” The order required relevant agencies to implement the directive by September 2025.
The order creates a Task Force to Restore American Airspace Sovereignty to be led by the assistant to the president for national security affairs or a designee. “The Task Force shall review relevant operational, technical, and regulatory frameworks and develop and propose solutions to UAS threats, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, and shall make recommendations on the implementation of all actions identified in this order,” the order stated.
It also directs the FAA to develop rules to restrict UAS flights over military bases and critical infrastructure like power plants, dams and bridges, to supplement Notices to Airmen and Temporary Flight Restrictions to accommodate geofencing measures to disable UAS traffic.
The far-reaching policy changes explicitly cover the southern border. DHS, the attorney general and the secretaries of war and transportation were asked to advise President Donald J. Trump “whether the northern and southern land borders; large airports; Federal facilities; critical infrastructure; and military installations, facilities, and assets should be designated as covered facilities or assets under 6 U.S.C. 124n and 10 U.S.C. 130i and whether any changes to law would be necessary relating to such designation.”
Reclassifying the borders as, essentially, a vital infrastructure asset or a military base would expand counter-UAS measures. Deploying more border sensors “is critical to detect and track cartel ‘narco-drone’ activity” but won’t eliminate the threat, Dr. Caitlin Lee, a UAS and counter-UAS expert at the Washington, D.C., think tank Rand Corp., told The Watch in an email. “Fielding kinetic and non-kinetic counter-drone systems to actually engage and disable narco-drones is an important next step,” Lee said.
So far, cartels only have used drones with explosives for kinetic operations south of the border, but that could change as the U.S. fight against TCOs intensifies, Lee said. The executive orders have helped clarify and codify the stakes, she said.