Jan-Albert Hootsen: Inside Mexico's Drone Wars Jan-Albert Hootsen - Vocativ
go to original June 4, 2014

Pilot Cassandra Hunt stands in front of the MQ-9 Predator B in its hanger at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The drone is used to detect undocumented immigrants entering the United States along the border with Mexico. (Reuters/Jeff Topping)

As far as historians are concerned, Mexico has invaded the United States on only one occasion. In March 1916, Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa crossed the border into New Mexico. Desperate for supplies, Villa’s troops snuck into a town called Columbus where U.S. soldiers lay waiting. A battle quickly ensued and nearly 100 people died.

Several years ago, Mexico once again entered U.S. territory. Strong winds caused a drone - deployed by the Mexico’s federal police to monitor crime along the U.S. border - to crash near El Paso. Only this time, the consequences were less dire. “They knew it was an accident,” says a Mexican intelligence official who asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. “[They] even helped us get the wreckage.”

For at least five years now, American drones have been flying over the Mexican border, searching for drug smugglers and monitoring migrants trying to illegally enter the U.S. On occasion, these drones have helped capture high-profile drug kingpins such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, once the world’s most-wanted man.

Mexicans don’t tend to like the U.S. meddling in its affairs, especially military ones. Which is why American drones aren’t the only ones crossing the border. In the near future, analysts say, Mexico may no longer have to rely on unmanned aircraft built and controlled by their northern neighbors.

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