Federal air marshals are outraged at the Biden administration for continuing to deploy them to the southern border despite a terror threat from al Qaeda.
During an interview on “Fox & Friends First” on Tuesday, Air Marshal National Council Executive Director Sonya Labosco said that sending air marshals to the border is putting Americans at risk.
“It looks absolutely insane,” Labosco told co-host Todd Piro. “We don’t understand why these decisions are being made. The intel is clear. Al Qaeda is watching for our weak areas. Our aviation is a high-risk area. We’re not protecting our aviation domain, and we’re going to the border. It is absolutely madness.”
This comes after high-level Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sources revealed recently that “al Qaeda says upcoming attacks on US possibly involving planes, will use new techniques and tactics.”
Despite the renewed terror threat, however, the Biden administration announced mandatory deployments to the border as the migrant surge continues amid staffing shortages.
Many agents expressed their willingness to reject the deployment and risk being fired. Labosco argued that there might not be enough legal support for the mandatory diversions.
“We do believe it’s a violation,” Labosco said. “We do believe that DHS has overstepped their bounds. We are waiting for Congress to get sworn in, hopefully today, and we can get some movement here. We need someone to step in, in Congress, and stop the deployment of federal air marshals.”
The Air Marshal National Council called out the administration for its approach since the border problem has received little media attention.
“How can you justify sending FAMs to the border in huge numbers, when the border is in your words secure, and there is no emergency yet?” read the letter sent to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the weekend. “Yet we have major security incidents happening right now affecting our aviation security.”
Meanwhile, a DHS spokesperson pushed back on the claim that flights are being left vulnerable, arguing that “there is nothing new or unique about this.”
“Federal Air Marshals have long supported various Departmental operations on a regular basis across Democratic and Republican administrations alike,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The suggestion that flights are being left unprotected is completely false. TSA takes its responsibility to secure the skies for the traveling public very seriously. We will continue to protect commercial flights through our multi-layered security processes, including through the Federal Air Marshal Service which supports this critical mission on the ground and onboard aircrafts.”
