Beginning today the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will start flights of its Predator Unmanned Aircraft Systems out of Corpus Christi, Texas, marking an expansion of the flight and basing footprint of the department’s fleet of Predators along the Southwest Border.
In May, the Federal Aviation Administration approved Customs and Border Protection’s plan to fly Predators along a portion of Texas’ border with Mexico (Defense Daily, May 18). Now CBP can conduct Predator flights from a stretch of border beginning in Southeast California running along the border regions of Arizona, New Mexico and in Texas to the Gulf of Mexico.
The expanded Predator flights generally coincide with the addition of an increase in personnel to monitor the nation’s Southwest Border. The Obama administration this year authorized the deployment of an additional 1,200 National Guard troops to the border to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and to support counter-narcotics enforcement.
The Predator is made by General Atomics.