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The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration called down a notice Wednesday halting all flights to and from El Paso International Airport in Texas several hours after it said they were being stopped for “special security reasons.”
The airport, which is next to the U.S. military’s Biggs Army Airfield and sits over the border from the Mexican city of Juarez, originally said in a post on Instagram that all flights had been grounded from just before midnight on Feb. 11 for a 10-day period.
Shortly before 9 a.m. ET Wednesday, the FAA said the airspace closure over El Paso had been lifted.
“There is no threat to commercial aviation. All flights will resume as normal,” the federal agency said in a post on social media.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on social media that the FAA and Department of Defence “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion.”
Duffy said the threat was “neutralized,” without providing specifics.
Airline sources had earlier told Reuters the grounding was believed to be tied to the Pentagon’s use of counterdrone technology to address Mexican drug cartels’ use of drones at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Democratic lawmakers questioned the administration’s explanation, and why there was a need for a 10-day measure.
“The statement by the administration that this shutdown was linked to a Mexican cartel drone that came into U.S. airspace — that is not my understanding,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, whose congressional district encompasses El Paso.
Escobar said she spoke to an unidentified federal government employee but was limited in what she could share at this point.
“Those of us who live in El Paso likely have known that there have been drone incursions from Mexico going back to as long as drones existed,” she said.
Mexican president unaware of U.S. claims
When asked about the temporary suspension, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday she had no knowledge of drones being used on the border with United States.
Sheinbaum said Mexican defence and navy secretaries will meet with U.S. Northern Command officials in Washington on Wednesday in a meeting attended by several other countries.
Sheinbaum said the Mexican officials would “listen” in the meeting.
“They are not taking any position other than the one we already know, which is the defence of sovereignty,” she said.
El Paso, with a population of about 680,000 people, is the 23rd-largest city in the U.S. The airport there handled 3.49 million passengers in the first 11 months of 2025, according to its website, including travellers flying with all the major U.S. airlines such as Southwest, Delta, United and American.
Closing the airspace over an American city is extremely rare, but notably took place countrywide in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“Medical evacuation flights were forced to divert to Las Cruces,” El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said at a Wednesday morning news conference. “All aviation operations were grounded, including emergency flights. This was a major and unnecessary disruption, one that has not occurred since 9/11.”
In mid-January, the FAA warned airlines to exercise caution when flying over Mexico, Central America and parts of South America, citing the risks of potential military activities.
Tensions between the U.S. and regional leaders have ramped up since the Trump administration mounted a large-scale military buildup in the southern Caribbean, attacked Venezuela and seized its president, Nicolás Maduro, in a military operation.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in January that drug cartels were running Mexico and suggested that the U.S. could strike land targets to combat them, one of a series of threats to deploy U.S. military force against cartels that date back to his 2024 presidential campaign.
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