DHS shuts down surveillance blimp program at the border citing lack of funding

The Department of Homeland Security has ended a program that used a series of blimps to help agents better surveil the southern border, saying funding has dried up.

Agents and lawmakers objected to the ending of the program, with the former saying it was key to help them track migrants who attempted to enter the country unlawfully and avoid apprehension close to the border.

The program used a dozen blimps across critical areas, but the figure then decreased to four. They were located in Nogales, Arizona, Deming, New Mexico, El Indio, Texas and McAllen, Texas. Last year authorities anticipated the funding was drying up, with the final decision to shut down being made now.

"Not just immigrants that come looking for work, that come through here, terrorists will be coming through here, drugs and so forth, because they know we don't have the technology," Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerberg told Border Report after learning the news.

The outlet added that there don't seem to be plans to replace the blimps with any other system, nor for the funding to resume. The two dozen people who worked in the program were let go and told they would be called back if funds resumed.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been resorting to virtual technologies to help agents keep tabs of movement across the border, recently deploying 195 autonomous surveillance towers and 256 remote video surveillance upgrades, an effort some agents described as a "virtual wall" going from California to Texas.

Migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border have reached their lowest levels since President Biden took office. CBP reported 56,408 migrant encounters between ports of entry in July, an 80% drop compared to last December, when illegal crossings surged to their highest-ever level.

The number of migrants crossing the border has declined steadily over the past five months. The decline was observed across all demographics, including single adults, families, and unaccompanied minors, during a period when migration typically increases.