Photo: Dmitri/Adobe Stock
The United States has assigned law enforcement a growing role in domestic drone defense without ensuring it has the resources, training, and support to operate without military backing. Congress extended counter-drone authority to nonfederal law enforcement less than a year ago, but efforts to train and equip police have struggled to keep pace with demand. Operation High Eagle (Águila Alta) tested military support for the homeland counter-drone mission with ambiguous results. Military involvement in homeland drone defense brings cutting-edge tools and substantial manpower to a national security priority, but it also raises a central policy question: Is military support helping build sustainable law enforcement capacity, or becoming a substitute for it?
Q1: What was Operation High Eagle?
A1: Operation High Eagle was a bilateral counter-drone mission recently concluded by U.S. and Mexican authorities along the southwest border. Neither government has released comprehensive data regarding the operation’s total metrics, limiting what can be concluded about its overall effectiveness. Operation High Eagle was executed in two phases: an initial phase dedicated to interagency coordination exercises, followed by an operational phase focused on disabling and disrupting cartel drones along the border. Mexican authorities reported at least one arrest of a cartel drone operator during the deployment. To facilitate the mission and increase Mexico’s counter-drone capacity, the United States allowed Mexico to procure advanced counter-drone technology directly from the U.S. Army’s digital marketplace.
Q2: What is the drone threat at the southwest border?
A2: Cartels inside Mexico use drones to conduct surveillance of U.S. and Mexican border authorities and smuggle narcotics and migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, which spans 1,954 miles of desert, mountains, rivers, and deep-rooted communities. Along this landscape, Joint Task Force–Southern Border, part of U.S. Northern Command, reported that it has defeated more than 300 drones this year alone.
Beyond simple reconnaissance, Mexican cartels are weaponizing drones. Since 2021, drone-delivered attacks in Mexico have tripled, reaching nearly 70 incidents in 2025. The sophistication of these operations is accelerating: In October 2025, cartels targeted a state attorney general’s office with improvised explosive devices, and in May 2026, a cartel firebombed a rural community in central Mexico using drones retrofitted with explosives. Intelligence reports indicate that Latin American criminal networks are actively expanding their capabilities by recruiting veteran drone operators trained in the Russia-Ukraine war. While some weaponized drone incursions have occurred near the California and Texas borders, there are no reported incidents of weaponized cartel drone attacks targeting the United States.
Q3: Who protects the U.S. southwest border from drone threats?
A3: The defense of the homeland against southwest border drone incursions depends on a multiagency network responsible for airspace monitoring, threat detection, interception, and accountability for drone operators. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol have monitored low-altitude threats along the southwest border for over three decades and first intercepted a cartel narcotics-smuggling drone in 2016.
Recently, the U.S. military expanded its role in domestic drone defense, with the newly established Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) spearheading the effort. Created in 2025 to centralize federal counter-drone initiatives, JIATF 401 supports law enforcement counter-drone operations and uses the southwest border as a live-theater testing ground to evaluate defensive technologies and accelerate innovations with broader warfighting utility. JIATF 401 integrates personnel and expertise from the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency, and Federal Aviation Administration. To support this work, JIATF 401 requested over $431 million and 130 additional staff for fiscal year 2027.
Q4: What guardrails exist for countering drones inside the United States?
A4: Counter-drone statutory guardrails were first established in 2018, granting the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) authority to protect designated facilities from drones. In 2025, Congress expanded the DHS and DOJ’s authority, allowing federal agencies to counter drones broadly to enforce the law and protect the public. Federal teams are highly visible safeguarding major events such as the UN General Assembly or the Super Bowl, but the demand for counter-drone support outstrips capacity. The FBI reported that since 2018, it has only possessed the resources to cover a mere 0.05 percent of the 240,000 special events authorized for potential counter-drone protection.
Congress passed the SAFER SKIES Act in December 2025 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, extending counter-drone authority to state, local, Tribal, and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement to address the federal resource gap. The expansion is supported by $500 million in federal grant funding and standardized training at the FBI National Counter-UAS Training Center. As of July 2026, 61 SLTT officers across 46 states were certified to conduct counter-drone operations.
Despite the expansion and investment in law enforcement, the SAFER SKIES Act only extended the authority for law enforcement to counter drones through December 2031. Prior to this extension, the authority for law enforcement to counter drones had been repeatedly imperiled by political instability and reauthorized through a series of rolling extensions that culminated in a temporary lapse in the authority in the fall of 2025 that briefly stripped federal law enforcement of its counter-drone authority.
The U.S. military has a counter-drone authority like that of DOJ and DHS to disrupt drones in the homeland. The exercise of that authority is limited to drones that threaten facilities or activities in the United States that directly relate to military missions. U.S. Northern Command synchronizes the military’s counter-drone activities across North America. The military’s authority to conduct counter-drone operations independently and outside of its narrow domestic defense remit is limited to a supporting role to assist federal law enforcement.
Counter-drone modalities span kinetic methods, including projectiles or entangling nets, electronic hijacking, and directed-energy attacks from new weapons such as the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser system. There are different risks associated with each method, including collateral damage, drone fratricide, risks to civilian aviation, and constitutional infringement. Electronic interception without a warrant directly implicates Fourth Amendment privacy rights, while the physical seizure or destruction of private property raises serious Fifth Amendment due process challenges. Several drone operators have claimed a violation of the First Amendment after being arrested and charged with state crimes for filming law enforcement activity with drones.
Q5: What does Operation High Eagle tell us about the U.S. military strategy to combat drones in the homeland?
A5: Operation High Eagle paints a blurry picture of domestic counter-drone operations. Congress designated most counter-drone defense as a law enforcement function, and the military cannot be used as a police force absent congressional approval or when expressly authorized by the Constitution. The military’s roles in counter-drone operations in Operation High Eagle were conducted alongside federal law enforcement, and some parts of the operation likely fell under law enforcement authority. What little information has been released about the mission is silent as to how the military applied its limited domestic counter-drone authority and expansive toolkit against suspected cartel drones, making it difficult for policymakers to discern the strategic implications of the operation.
U.S. Northern Command’s next interagency counter-drone exercise, Falcon Peak, will provide an opportunity to examine how the military plans to operate within domestic constraints. The operations director indicated that the 2027 iteration will simulate a populated civilian setting, noting that “defending urban areas in the homeland requires navigating strict domestic policies, complex jurisdictional boundaries and heightened collateral-damage concerns that are not present on an open test range.” Testing in that setting can help assess preparedness for drone combat in an urban U.S. environment. It also allows the Pentagon and policymakers to reevaluate the military’s strategic commitments and its ability to defend homeland airspace in support of law enforcement.
Q6: What is law enforcement’s capacity to counter the drone threat at the southwest border?
A6: While the Pentagon has a year to plan for urban drone warfare scenarios, federal and SLTT law enforcement are facing the drone threat at this very moment, and while data is sparse, there is strong evidence that law enforcement is struggling to keep up. In October 2026, a bipartisan group of 29 state governors sent a letter to the DOJ, the Pentagon, and the FBI, issuing an urgent warning that state and local law enforcement on the front lines of the drone threat lack the trained personnel needed to protect their states. The governors urged greater access to federal counter-drone training for law enforcement, corrections officials, and the National Guard.
The SAFER SKIES Act was an unprecedented capitalization of domestic drone defense, but the scale and novelty of extending authority to SLTT law enforcement complicate efforts to establish baseline benchmarks for its efficacy. JIATF 401’s lack of public reporting on law enforcement performance in Operation High Eagle leaves federal counter-drone readiness and outstanding resource gaps difficult to assess. Reporting those results would also offer an opportunity to address public confidence following two separate counter-drone safety incidents along the southwest border. Resource stability is a distinct concern: Counter-drone funding and authority appear more secure for the U.S. military than for federal law enforcement, particularly DHS, where they remain far more precarious.
To accurately evaluate law enforcement readiness to counter drone threats, policymakers should assess the following seven metrics:
Q7: How do private organizations defend themselves from drones?
A7: The law limits private organizations from countering drones despite the significant risk they pose to private venues, critical infrastructure, and events. Despite this constraint, private organizations are closing the defensive gap: The Jacksonville Jaguars became the first NFL franchise to announce the acquisition of counter-drone technology, partnering with trained local law enforcement to defeat drones during events, and two additional NFL teams reportedly followed suit. While NFL teams have used drone detection technology for years, venue owners buying the technology that law enforcement operates signals a new phase in counter-drone law enforcement. Private organizations purchasing counter-drone equipment for law enforcement to operate frees up public funds and may be the first step in an eventual shift to privatization of counter-drone operations.
Policymakers should examine whether owners and operators of soft targets—including large entertainment venues, airports, and critical infrastructure—can assume more of the financial and technological burden of counter-drone operations. A separate question is whether private organizations should conduct counter-drone operations themselves, a shift that would require major legal changes. Both questions warrant scrutiny of whether less-funded venues and critical infrastructure would receive uneven protection.
Q8: How does counter-drone activity at the southwest border impact the U.S.-Mexico relationship and border communities?
A8: Deploying U.S. military tools and personnel to counter cartel drones along the southwest border comes at a delicate moment in the bilateral relationship with Mexico, which is already strained by trade and immigration disputes. This dynamic makes the proximity of the U.S. military along the southwest border a high-stakes test of diplomatic boundaries. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has consistently maintained that Mexico’s cooperation with the United States on counternarcotics and immigration operations along the border is conditioned on the United States respecting Mexico’s territorial sovereignty. President Sheinbaum repeatedly declined offers to deploy U.S. troops to combat cartels in Mexico, and her administration is sensitive to perceptions of unilateral U.S. military provocation along the border.
The diplomatic tension between Washington, D.C., and Mexico City from a U.S. military presence along the southwest border appears unlikely to abate, even though the threat of weaponized drones remains localized within Mexico, and Mexico City also now possesses direct access to purchase its own military-grade counter-drone technology from the U.S. Army marketplace to counter drones inside Mexico before they reach the United States. Further, the Federal Aviation Administration recently imposed a yearlong temporary flight restriction (TFR) inside the United States that bars drone operation within one nautical mile of nearly 2,000 miles of the southwest border with Mexico, up to 400 feet. Announcing the TFR, the Pentagon warned that the military “will shoot down any cartel drone that threatens America’s sovereignty.”
Although announced in terms of cartel threats, the TFR also prohibits legitimate drone operations within the designated U.S. area unless federal law enforcement grants special permission. Drone industry advocates have warned that the restriction affects agricultural drones working on U.S. farms, infrastructure inspection, commercial surveys, and newsgathering. For U.S. drone owners and operators, the prospect of military disruption or destruction raises public safety and constitutional concerns. Three implementation questions remain unresolved: whether military and law enforcement personnel have the tools and capacity to enforce the restriction for an entire year, how exemptions will be managed, and what material effect, if any, the restriction will have on cartels.
Operation High Eagle highlights the increasingly blurred line between military operations and domestic policing as the drone threat evolves. Temporary military reinforcement can provide a vital national security stopgap along the southwest border, but it is not a permanent counter-drone strategy. Military tools and authorities are finite, distinct, and designed for warfighting—not policing. The strategic risk arises when those assets substitute for sustained investment in law enforcement: Overreliance creates regulatory uncertainty and risks undermining the institutions that must ultimately carry the mission. When military operations end and policy attention shifts, law enforcement will remain on the front line of this homeland threat, whether prepared or not.
Kathleen Lord Fallon is a military fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
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