How the Border Crisis is Making Air Travel More Dangerous

July 12, 2024

By Brian Lonergan

Despite voluminous reports over the last three years about the many ways the border invasion is dangerous to Americans, new threats are still emerging. They are coming not just from the invasion itself but also from the White House’s weak, half-hearted attempts to address the problems it has largely created.

The New York Post recently told the story of a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Boston last year, when a man tried to stab a flight attendant and was stopped only because other passengers intervened. The intervention was necessary because, according to Sonya LaBosco, a retired supervisory air marshal speaking on behalf of the Air Marshal National Council, air marshals normally assigned to such cross-country flights have been redirected to the southern border to help with the security and humanitarian crises there.

But wait, defenders of the current administration’s chaotic immigration policies may argue, isn’t deploying more law enforcement personnel to the border a good thing? Under leadership with a sensible, America First border strategy, that would be true if the reinforcements were helping to prevent illegal entries.

Alas, air marshals sent to the border are “handing out water, making sandwiches, Uber Eats runs … bringing diapers and stuff into the facilities and unloading trucks,” LaBosco said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

This is some of the most direct evidence yet that, as critics have long said since 2021, Border Patrol and other law enforcement are not really defending our border anymore but serving as a welcoming committee to the masses who have flouted our immigration laws by illegally entering the country. It is one of the worst examples of government malfeasance at a time when Americans’ faith in their leaders sits deservedly at record lows.

The Federal Air Marshal Service, as it is known today, began in 1968 and serves under the Transportation Security Administration. The need for covert law enforcement or counterterrorist agents on board commercial aircraft became urgent after the attacks of September 11, 2001, exposing the vulnerabilities of our air travel security.

“The long-haul flights are super important for us to be on because those are the same flights the 9/11 hijackers actually targeted and took that day on 9/11,” LaBosco said.

To compound the threat, potential terrorists may have an easier path into the United States today than they did in 2001 thanks to our surrendered borders. More than 400 foreign nationals from Central Asia and elsewhere identified as “subjects of concern” by the Department of Homeland Security have entered the country illegally in the past three years, brought in by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network. Over 150 of them have been arrested, but 50 or more are still roaming the country.

According to DHS’ Homeland Threat Assessment, federal agents have encountered a “growing number of individuals” on the FBI’s terror watchlist trying to illegally cross the southern border. Given the gaps in the unfinished border wall and the lawless environment at the border, it would be naïve to assume that none of the attempts of potential terrorists to cross the border have been successful.

Adding insult to injury, more than 500,000 foreign nationals who so far have entered the country using the White House’s CBP One phone app are allowed to fly domestically without a photo ID, a privilege not granted to U.S. citizens and legal residents.

A timeout is in order to process the logic at work here. Air marshals are being taken off commercial flights and sent to help with the border crisis. Potential terrorists have entered the country illegally and may be allowed to board commercial flights without photo IDs — the same flights that now no longer have air marshals on them to prevent acts of terrorism. Make that make sense.

Even if another act of terrorism doesn’t occur on a flight, the threat to passengers from the lack of air marshals on board still exists. There is no shortage of news reports of unhinged individuals acting out during flights. Having an armed air marshal on the flight can neutralize a situation far more effectively than relying on other passengers to do so. The travelers on the aforementioned L.A.-to-Boston flight were able to subdue the potential stabber. Next time, a similar incident could just as easily result in someone being injured or killed for lack of a law enforcement agent on the scene.

Air marshals are highly trained professionals doing a vital service for the country. They should be allowed to perform that service and not be repurposed to make sandwiches and distribute diapers at our overrun border. It is yet another insulting reminder of our government prioritizing the needs of foreigners over the safety of its citizens.

Brian Lonergan is director of communications at the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) in Washington, D.C, and co-host of IRLI’s “No Border, No Country” podcast.

Also published at The Blaze, July 11, 2024.

Photo credit: Transportation Security Administration