Congressman Henry Cuellar has proposed creating a drone task force to counter cartel surveillance and smuggling operations. In laying out the idea, Cuellar said it would bring together Border Patrol, the military, and Laredo College to build a unified response that can move “faster and more agile” than the bureaucracy in Washington.
He met with Border Patrol leadership in Laredo to discuss the details, thanking the agency’s chief for his leadership and the military for its expertise. Cuellar said the conversations were sparked by recent reports of cartel drones flying over U.S. agents, tracking their movements, and radioing smugglers to move in the opposite direction. As KGNS reported, Cuellar emphasized that while cartels can acquire and deploy drones without restriction, U.S. agencies are slowed by procurement rules and red tape—a gap he says the task force must close.
The scale of the problem has already been documented in Washington. “In the last six months of 2024, over 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters of the southern border,” testified Steven Willoughby, Director of DHS’s Counter-UAS Program Management Office. He added that “CBP drone detections also led to the arrests of over 1,500 subjects along the southwest border.” What Cuellar warned about to KGNS was echoed by federal officials under oath: hostile drones are now a daily fact of life. “Nearly every day, transnational criminal organizations use drones to convey illicit narcotics and contraband across U.S. borders and conduct hostile surveillance of law enforcement,” Willoughby said.
The escalation is just as stark. “Since early August 2024, warring Sinaloa Cartel factions have increasingly attacked one another using drone-delivered improvised explosive devices and it is only a matter of time before Americans or law enforcement are targeted in the border region,” Willoughby told the Senate Judiciary Committee. That warning has already materialized in the Mexican interior. In Michoacán, cartels have deployed drones to drop grenades and larger improvised bombs, burn vehicles, and terrorize entire towns. The Zero Lux has reported on how operators adapted agricultural drones into weapons platforms with endurance measured in hours and ranges of more than 100 kilometers. Independent researchers have confirmed hundreds of such attacks, with 260 recorded in 2023 alone. The tactics exist, the weapons are in circulation, and the precedent is set.
Other officials admitted the law has not caught up. “Weaponization of drones is generally treated as a civil offense. We believe it should be a felony,” said Christopher Hardee of the Department of Justice. He explained that even flying a drone over a sensitive Defense Department facility is only a misdemeanor. The mismatch between the threat and the penalty mirrors Cuellar’s point about bureaucracy lagging behind. Cartels adapt quickly, the law grinds slowly.
The FBI added another layer. “Our counter-UAS program is not a national rapid response force… with more than 90,000 special events annually, we must adopt a whole-of-government approach that includes expanding authority to enable state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement partners,” testified Supervisory Special Agent Michael Torphy. The call for state and local empowerment sounded almost identical to Cuellar’s vision of fusing Border Patrol, the military, and local institutions like Laredo College into a single framework. It was confirmation that the agility gap isn’t just perception—it is embedded in how the federal program operates.
A 2024 report by the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies warned that “surveillance emerges as the most complex to counter and the one in which drones might catalyse an exponential increase of criminal activity.” The study urged law enforcement to build detection networks, share data across agencies, and train specialized counter-UAS units. The recommendations were indistinguishable from the functions Cuellar had outlined for his task force.
Senator John Cornyn was blunt at the Judiciary hearing. “We are not prepared for this technology… a determined adversary has all the tools they need using drone technology to accomplish their goal and we’re not prepared to deal with that.” His assessment matched Cuellar’s: the cartels are innovating faster than Washington can respond.
At the same hearing, Senator Ted Cruz erupted over the imbalance. “Cartels have more drones than America,” he said. Cruz has since introduced the SkyFoundry Act of 2025 to create a drone manufacturing facility at Texarkana’s Red River Army Depot, arguing that the United States must expand its own capacity to meet the threat. His answer is industrial—building the hardware base to compete. Cuellar’s answer is operational—building a Laredo-based task force that can fuse detection, training, and enforcement. Both are rooted in the same recognition: the United States is outpaced, and Texas is on the front line.
“It’s important that we show the U.S. is responding to what the Mexican cartels are doing,” Cuellar told KGNS. What he called for in Laredo was not a theoretical exercise but a mirror of what DHS, DOJ, and FBI officials have already said is necessary: faster action, stronger laws, and coordination across agencies. The cartels do not have to wait for implementing guidance, committee markups, or appropriations.
