Mexican President Says U.S. Drone Surveillance Flights Have Been Agreed With Trump Admin: 'They Are Part Of The Coordination'

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the country is aware of U.S. surveillance drones being flown over the country and that their activities are a result of coordination between the two countries.

"These flights are part of the coordination... collaborations that have been going on for many years between the U.S. and Mexican governments," Sheinbaum said during one of her daily press conferences. She added that information gathered is then shared with Mexican authorities.

The statement follows a report by The New York Times, which detailed increased drone flights over Mexico as authorities look for fentanyl labs to destroy. Even though the program began during the Biden administration, activity has increased recently as part of President Donald Trump's vow to crack down on drug-smuggling.

An official told the outlet that the flights go "well into sovereign Mexico" but that the CIA has not been authorized to take lethal action, and that the guidance is not expected to change. However, since fentanyl labs emit chemicals that make them easy to identify from the air, the flights have proved helpful so far.

The U.S. has also been conducting surveillance missions at the border to get intelligence on Mexican drug cartels, declared foreign terrorist organizations this week by the State Department.

Concretely, CNN reported last week that 18 missions were conducted over a 10-day period in late January and early February, with the majority of them flying over the southwestern U.S. and in international airspace around the Baja peninsula.

The U.S. has historically conducted surveillance missions, but the frequency has gone from one a month around the southern border to the mentioned 18, according to one former military official with deep experience in homeland defense.

The Trump administration plans to use the military as the lead agency to tackle border security, but current and former U.S. officials say it remains unclear how the administration plans to leverage information it acquires. Some of them told CNN that the intelligence flights could be part of an effort to find targets for the U.S. military to strike itself, while others that it could be used to build a body of evidence for further foreign terrorist designations or even identify information that could be shared with the Mexican military.