DEL RIO, Texas – U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Comstock and Carrizo Springs Stations collaborated with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Air and Marine Operations (AMO) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), Jan 27 to arrest multiple illegal aliens.

“Technology systems like the UAS allow us to greatly improve our presence on the border,” said Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L. Ortiz. “We are always looking for innovative ways to implement technology into our time honored law enforcement response.”

In two separate events on Jan. 27, UAS crews located 13 illegal aliens, leading to their arrests. Eight illegal aliens were spotted and arrested near Comstock, and another five were located and subsequently arrested near Carrizo Springs.

“One aspect of National Air Security Operations Center-San Angelo’s mission is to safeguard our nation by anticipating and confronting security threats at the border using innovative law enforcement technology,” said Troy Meridith, San Angelo Director of Air and Marine Operations. “The center’s Joint Program Office consisting of Air and Marine Operations, U.S. Border Patrol, and U.S. Coast Guard personnel, fly MQ-9 Unmanned Aircraft Systems technology to provide land and maritime domain awareness along the Texas Border.”

AMO’s UAS crews use cutting-edge systems technology and real-time networked data dissemination and exploitation to detect, identify, monitor, and coordinate a response with law enforcement partners to threats at the nation’s border and on approach to the United States. This real time view allows agents to effectively patrol vast amounts of land that may be otherwise inaccessible to agents.

In fiscal year 2020 to date, the UAS VADER platform has detected 473 illegal aliens attempting to evade detection resulting in 175 arrests in the Del Rio Sector area of operation.