Operation High Eagle shows US counter-drone policing gap

The United States has put a military task force at the head of a counter-drone mission that, on American soil, largely belongs to the police. Operation High Eagle, a joint operation with Mexico against cartel drones along the south-west border, has concluded, and an analysis by Kathleen Lord Fallon at CSIS finds that Joint Interagency Task Force 401 spearheaded the American effort.

The threat is real and uneven. The US military’s border task force reports defeating more than 300 drones this year, and CSIS counts nearly 70 drone-delivered attacks inside Mexico in 2025. The same analysis finds no reported weaponised cartel drone attack on a target in the United States.

The civilian gap is harder to dismiss. CSIS reports that since 2018 the FBI has had the resources to cover 0.05 per cent of the 240,000 special events eligible for counter-drone protection. Congress extended counter-drone authority to state, local, Tribal and territorial police in December 2025, with $500 million in grants. By July 2026, 61 officers across 46 states had been certified. The task force, meanwhile, has asked for more than $431 million and 130 extra staff for the 2027 fiscal year.

A stopgap can harden into the normal arrangement. A year-long flight restriction now bars drones within one nautical mile of nearly 2,000 miles of the border, and it covers farm, commercial and news drones unless federal law enforcement grants permission. CSIS adds that neither government has published full results from the operation, which makes the police side hard to judge. The figures to watch are how many civilian officers are certified and whether the task force’s request is funded.

Sources: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).