Bombshell: Obama cutting border surveillance in half
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is planning to cut 50 percent of the budget for aerial surveillance along the U.S.-Mexico border, agents revealed at a congressional hearing Thursday.In an effort to understand why DHS is cutting funding, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, wrote a bipartisan letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.“Any decrease in aerial observation is not only imprudent, but contradicts the very mission of border security enforcement,” the letter states.The lawmakers’ letter also asks for detailed information about the reduction aerial-based border security, also known as Operation Phalanx.Abbott and Cuellar describe news of the funding cut for border security as “unsettling.” “It has come to our attention that for calendar year 2016 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested 3,850 hours of persistent aerial detection, situational awareness and monitoring capability support for Operation Phalanx from the Department of Defense (DOD). This request was fifty percent lower than that of recent years. Given the recent surge of migrants from Central America and Cuba along the southern border, we believe DHS should request more surveillance and security resources, not fewer. Moreover, Texas requested additional aerial observation resources in a September 30, 2015, letter that went unanswered by your department.
Source: Bombshell: Obama cutting border surveillance in half
