The El Paso airspace closure unpacked
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mister_coffee
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Re: The El Paso airspace closure unpacked
Just a slight clarification: the statement "A standard 5-milliwatt handheld laser pointer already poses a risk of flash blindness to pilots. A 20-kilowatt laser is orders of magnitude more powerful," is technically true. But the reality is that such a laser is four million times more powerful, so that is a smidgen more than six orders of magnitude.
David Bonn 
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Rideback
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The El Paso airspace closure unpacked
"Here are the basic facts.
On the evening of Tuesday, February 10, 2026, and continuing into the morning of Wednesday, February 11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a sudden "ground stop" and closed the airspace over El Paso International Airport (ELP) and surrounding areas in Texas and New Mexico (AP News). The FAA’s decision to shut down the airport was made "out of an abundance of caution" upon learning of the deployment of a laser-based counter-unmanned aerial system (c-UAS), as they had not yet assessed the safety risks the weapon posed to commercial air traffic (Air & Space Forces Magazine). The closure, initially announced as a 10-day restriction, was rescinded within a matter of hours, allowing flights to resume on Wednesday morning (Military Times).
Initial official statements from the Trump administration, specifically from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, characterized the event as a successful neutralization of a "cartel drone incursion" (Action News Jax). Subsequent reporting, citing internal FBI documents and officials familiar with the debris analysis, indicated that the objects shot down were not cartel drones but were likely "Happy Valentine's Day" party balloons (Tom's Hardware).
THE WEAPON
The airspace closure was precipitated by the deployment of a high-energy laser weapon by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents near Fort Bliss identified as a LOCUST (Laser Optical Counter-UAS System), a 20-kilowatt mobile directed-energy weapon developed by AeroVironment/BlueHalo, which the U.S. Army has been prototyping for border defense (The War Zone). The laser system was reportedly on loan to CBP from the Department of Defense (recently designated by executive order as the "Department of War") (Al Jazeera).
The LOCUST, commonly mounted on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) or standard cargo container, is designed for a specific nightmare scenario: drone swarms. A recent wargame exercise, Hedgehog 2025, illustrated the necessity of this tech.
In the simulation, a small Ukrainian team using a battlefield-management system destroyed 17 armored vehicles and conducted 30 strikes in half a day; the NATO side "didn’t even get our drone teams" (WSJ)
In a battlefield scenario like Hedgehog, "legacy" air defense dependent on kinetic missiles is limited by ammunition. As cheap, agile drone threats become more numerous, the cost per intercept becomes unsustainable; recall Saudi Arabia in 2017 using a $3 million Patriot missile to shoot down a $200 quadcopter. A laser-based system like LOCUST solves this: its "magazine" is its power source.
However, the LOCUST's design for the battlefield makes it uniquely hazardous in civilian airspace. A standard 5-milliwatt handheld laser pointer already poses a risk of flash blindness to pilots. A 20-kilowatt laser is orders of magnitude more powerful, capable not just of blinding a pilot permanently, but of causing structural thermal damage to the airframe itself.
OPERATIONAL COORDINATION
From the perspective of watching how the U.S. federal government invokes emergency powers, the inter-agency friction here is telling. Reports indicate that CBP and military officials did not coordinate with the FAA prior to firing into civilian airspace.
Typically, engaging an air defense threat falls within the purview of United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and NORAD. Yet, when journalists sought comment, NORTHCOM directed them to the Pentagon, which refused to comment (The Hill). This suggests that this was not a standard defense operation, but a law enforcement operation using military tools.
Current statutes do grant the Department of Homeland Security limited authority to neutralize drones that threaten specific facilities. However, the authority used here appears to stem directly from the National Emergency at the Southern Border, reinstated by President Trump on January 20, 2025. That declaration describes the border situation as an "invasion" and invokes 10 U.S.C. § 12302 to allow the DoD to provide "full operational control" to DHS (White House website).
Crucially, Section 3 of that proclamation directs the Secretary of Transportation to "consider waiving all applicable Federal Aviation Administration... regulations... that restrict the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to counter unmanned aerial systems within 5 miles of the southern border."
Know what's within 3.5 miles of the border? El Paso International Airport.
THE NORMALIZATION OF MILITARY ASSETS IN CIVILIAN SPACES
Standard statutory authorities (like the 2018 Preventing Emerging Threats Act) require interagency coordination. The fact that the FAA was bypassed entirely strongly implies the activation of the Section 3 waiver. Since Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy publicly defended the operation, blaming a "cartel drone incursion", we can confirm that this "consideration" has likely turned into an active standing order within the administration(Texas Public Radio).
This represents a massive breakdown of the traditional Title 10 (Military) vs. Title 50 (Intelligence/Domestic) distinctions. The transfer of a 20-kilowatt military laser to a civilian agency for use in domestic airspace, without FAA notification, is a significant legal leap. It suggests an institutional system aggressively interpreting an emergency declaration to operate under wartime rules of engagement (shoot first, identify later) rather than peacetime law enforcement rules.
The chaos of the "10-day closure" that lasted only a few hours wasn't a sign of a legal battle; it was the sound of the FAA realizing they had already lost. The local Air Traffic Control at ELP hadn't fully operationalized the reality that they no longer have the final say in their own airspace. The "glitch" was simply the civilian bureaucracy catching up to the military reality: the 5-mile border zone is now, effectively, a forward operating base where DHS and the Department of War hold the ultimate right of way.
To stress this point a bit: I don't need a conspiracy theory here to explain how the breakdown in communication that happened, where airspace was briefly closed, then reopened, wast because the CBP went "rogue" or used secret powers.
It was because the local FAA Air Traffic Control at ELP hadn't fully operationalized the fact that they no longer had final say in their own airspace. The "10-day closure" that was quickly rescinded looks less like a legal battle and more like the FAA realizing:
"Oh, right, the Section 3 waiver. We actually can't stop them."
And the question now ecomes, if El Paso International is now subject to unannounced directed-energy weapons fire due to its proximity to the border, what happens now to other airports within 5 miles of the border, like Brownsville (BRO) or Imperial County Airport (IPL) - are those free-fire zones for CBP lasers now too?
Under Operation Southern Spear, the Trump administration has been militarizing significant swaths of border land by extending the jurisdiction of nearby military bases (Air Force website) so are these now no-fly zones where people should anticipate potentially getting blasted by CBP personnel operating tactical lasers?
Stepping back at an "all-hands meetings for citizens" level, the El Paso laser incident demonstrates that the "National Emergency" is not just rhetorical, another dull little bureaucratic event in a tedious gray mass of such proclamations emerging from a normal government. It shows how emergency declarations become a kind of legal solvent that corrodes the protective regulatory membrane between civilian commerce and military force.
In the hands of an Executive Branch that is actively adversarial to the rule of law and the conduct of democracy in the country that elected it, it is just the kind of event that we should be watching carefully to understand how exactly the line between killing and policing is getting blurred."
Joohn Choe
---
On the evening of Tuesday, February 10, 2026, and continuing into the morning of Wednesday, February 11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a sudden "ground stop" and closed the airspace over El Paso International Airport (ELP) and surrounding areas in Texas and New Mexico (AP News). The FAA’s decision to shut down the airport was made "out of an abundance of caution" upon learning of the deployment of a laser-based counter-unmanned aerial system (c-UAS), as they had not yet assessed the safety risks the weapon posed to commercial air traffic (Air & Space Forces Magazine). The closure, initially announced as a 10-day restriction, was rescinded within a matter of hours, allowing flights to resume on Wednesday morning (Military Times).
Initial official statements from the Trump administration, specifically from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, characterized the event as a successful neutralization of a "cartel drone incursion" (Action News Jax). Subsequent reporting, citing internal FBI documents and officials familiar with the debris analysis, indicated that the objects shot down were not cartel drones but were likely "Happy Valentine's Day" party balloons (Tom's Hardware).
THE WEAPON
The airspace closure was precipitated by the deployment of a high-energy laser weapon by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents near Fort Bliss identified as a LOCUST (Laser Optical Counter-UAS System), a 20-kilowatt mobile directed-energy weapon developed by AeroVironment/BlueHalo, which the U.S. Army has been prototyping for border defense (The War Zone). The laser system was reportedly on loan to CBP from the Department of Defense (recently designated by executive order as the "Department of War") (Al Jazeera).
The LOCUST, commonly mounted on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) or standard cargo container, is designed for a specific nightmare scenario: drone swarms. A recent wargame exercise, Hedgehog 2025, illustrated the necessity of this tech.
In the simulation, a small Ukrainian team using a battlefield-management system destroyed 17 armored vehicles and conducted 30 strikes in half a day; the NATO side "didn’t even get our drone teams" (WSJ)
In a battlefield scenario like Hedgehog, "legacy" air defense dependent on kinetic missiles is limited by ammunition. As cheap, agile drone threats become more numerous, the cost per intercept becomes unsustainable; recall Saudi Arabia in 2017 using a $3 million Patriot missile to shoot down a $200 quadcopter. A laser-based system like LOCUST solves this: its "magazine" is its power source.
However, the LOCUST's design for the battlefield makes it uniquely hazardous in civilian airspace. A standard 5-milliwatt handheld laser pointer already poses a risk of flash blindness to pilots. A 20-kilowatt laser is orders of magnitude more powerful, capable not just of blinding a pilot permanently, but of causing structural thermal damage to the airframe itself.
OPERATIONAL COORDINATION
From the perspective of watching how the U.S. federal government invokes emergency powers, the inter-agency friction here is telling. Reports indicate that CBP and military officials did not coordinate with the FAA prior to firing into civilian airspace.
Typically, engaging an air defense threat falls within the purview of United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and NORAD. Yet, when journalists sought comment, NORTHCOM directed them to the Pentagon, which refused to comment (The Hill). This suggests that this was not a standard defense operation, but a law enforcement operation using military tools.
Current statutes do grant the Department of Homeland Security limited authority to neutralize drones that threaten specific facilities. However, the authority used here appears to stem directly from the National Emergency at the Southern Border, reinstated by President Trump on January 20, 2025. That declaration describes the border situation as an "invasion" and invokes 10 U.S.C. § 12302 to allow the DoD to provide "full operational control" to DHS (White House website).
Crucially, Section 3 of that proclamation directs the Secretary of Transportation to "consider waiving all applicable Federal Aviation Administration... regulations... that restrict the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to counter unmanned aerial systems within 5 miles of the southern border."
Know what's within 3.5 miles of the border? El Paso International Airport.
THE NORMALIZATION OF MILITARY ASSETS IN CIVILIAN SPACES
Standard statutory authorities (like the 2018 Preventing Emerging Threats Act) require interagency coordination. The fact that the FAA was bypassed entirely strongly implies the activation of the Section 3 waiver. Since Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy publicly defended the operation, blaming a "cartel drone incursion", we can confirm that this "consideration" has likely turned into an active standing order within the administration(Texas Public Radio).
This represents a massive breakdown of the traditional Title 10 (Military) vs. Title 50 (Intelligence/Domestic) distinctions. The transfer of a 20-kilowatt military laser to a civilian agency for use in domestic airspace, without FAA notification, is a significant legal leap. It suggests an institutional system aggressively interpreting an emergency declaration to operate under wartime rules of engagement (shoot first, identify later) rather than peacetime law enforcement rules.
The chaos of the "10-day closure" that lasted only a few hours wasn't a sign of a legal battle; it was the sound of the FAA realizing they had already lost. The local Air Traffic Control at ELP hadn't fully operationalized the reality that they no longer have the final say in their own airspace. The "glitch" was simply the civilian bureaucracy catching up to the military reality: the 5-mile border zone is now, effectively, a forward operating base where DHS and the Department of War hold the ultimate right of way.
To stress this point a bit: I don't need a conspiracy theory here to explain how the breakdown in communication that happened, where airspace was briefly closed, then reopened, wast because the CBP went "rogue" or used secret powers.
It was because the local FAA Air Traffic Control at ELP hadn't fully operationalized the fact that they no longer had final say in their own airspace. The "10-day closure" that was quickly rescinded looks less like a legal battle and more like the FAA realizing:
"Oh, right, the Section 3 waiver. We actually can't stop them."
And the question now ecomes, if El Paso International is now subject to unannounced directed-energy weapons fire due to its proximity to the border, what happens now to other airports within 5 miles of the border, like Brownsville (BRO) or Imperial County Airport (IPL) - are those free-fire zones for CBP lasers now too?
Under Operation Southern Spear, the Trump administration has been militarizing significant swaths of border land by extending the jurisdiction of nearby military bases (Air Force website) so are these now no-fly zones where people should anticipate potentially getting blasted by CBP personnel operating tactical lasers?
Stepping back at an "all-hands meetings for citizens" level, the El Paso laser incident demonstrates that the "National Emergency" is not just rhetorical, another dull little bureaucratic event in a tedious gray mass of such proclamations emerging from a normal government. It shows how emergency declarations become a kind of legal solvent that corrodes the protective regulatory membrane between civilian commerce and military force.
In the hands of an Executive Branch that is actively adversarial to the rule of law and the conduct of democracy in the country that elected it, it is just the kind of event that we should be watching carefully to understand how exactly the line between killing and policing is getting blurred."
Joohn Choe
---