Where Are The Air Marshals?
On October 3, 2023, Senator Ted Cruz, ranking member of the committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, sent a letter to the TSA Administrator David Pekoske, requesting information about the Federal Air Marshal Service deployment of air marshals to the Southern border.
In this letter, Senator Cruz questioned why hundreds of air marshals have been used at the border and why they were “administering aid to illegal aliens”.
The letter goes on to highlight several incidents on flights within the past year and how the presence of air marshals could have had prevented the incidents from escalating.
It poses several interesting questions to the administrator, and I am looking forward to seeing how the administrator responds.
As a retired air marshal, I can’t stress enough how invaluable the presence of air marshals onboard an aircraft is. I know when I fly, I would feel more safe knowing that I have brothers and sisters covering my six while on vacation travel.
Air marshals are not trained to do what the Transportation Security Administration is making them do at the Southern border.
As indicated in the letter to the administrator, air marshals have been used to perform “administrative functions, conducting welfare checks, and escorting aliens to processing centers.”
Air marshals are highly skilled trained operators. The agency spends thousands of dollars training air marshals to deal with real time stressful situations.
This is your tax dollars at work, and you should demand better from your government.
As air marshals continue to be deployed to the Southern border, our skies continue to be vulnerable to another 9/11 style attack.
With an open border, the government is only inviting more trouble and our transportation system is at the weakest position I have seen it since I joined the service back in 2002.
This should be of concern to any American citizen who steps on an aircraft. This is you and your family’s safety. With an open border we bring new security challenges and air marshals should be deployed where they belong: the skies.
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/1622D46F-A2E2-410F-91E5-0488C7CD96BE