Border Patrol to buy two new UAV for U.S.-Mexico border

national outcry over border enforcement. “Texas is not being ignored,” Napolitano said. “Those deployment decisions have to be made by the officers in the field.”

Still, adding two new drones to the border would allow Customs and Border Protection to provide round-the-clock surveillance.

Martin writes that there are six Predator B UAVs operated by CBP along the northern and southern borders. That includes one expected to be fully operational and based at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi as soon as 1 Septtember.

The Federal Aviation Administration has approved use of the drones along 800 miles of the Texas border, from the Rio Grande Valley to the Big Bend region. The area of operation approved by the FAA also includes flights over the Gulf of Mexico for surveillance of smugglers using sea routes to move contraband into the United States.

Four or five UAVs would eventually be needed in Texas to provide surveillance for the border and coastal areas, Cuellar said.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Kostelnik, the assistant Customs and Border Protection commissioner for the Office of Air and Marine, told a House subcommittee that twenty-four UAVs would eventually be needed to cover the entire northern and southern borders and U.S. coastlines.

Cuellar said the operational timeline for the newly approved drones was unknown, because the aircraft must still be ordered, built and delivered. He noted that military versions of the aircraft have priority on the production line.

CBP has been flying remotely piloted aircraft out of Sierra Vista, Arizona, over the border in California, Arizona and New Mexico.

The first drone flight over West Texas occurred this year. That aircraft is based in Sierra Vista.

In addition to the drones, Napolitano said money in the recently passed bill will be used to upgrade communications equipment for Border Patrol agents operating in rugged terrain in the four Southwestern border states.

Money to hire 500 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will go to bolster efforts to stop traffickers tied to the drug cartels blamed for escalating violence in northern Mexico.

Napolitano said U.S. officials were working with Mexican president Felipe Calderón’s administration in its crackdown on the cartels and to prevent violence from spilling over the Rio Grande and the border into U.S. cities.

Cornyn said the resources approved by Congress are a “step in the right direction,” but not enough to secure the Southwestern border. He said the Obama administration is “being shortsighted if not downright naive in assuming $600 million is actually going to get the job done.”