Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a bill Tuesday that would block Federal Air Marshal Service agents from going to the southern border unless Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas verifies that a border crisis exists.
“Americans have recently witnessed numerous high-profile security incidents in the sky, highlighting the TSA’s decision to take air marshals off flights and deploy them to the border. That may be putting the traveling public at risk,” said Mr. Cruz, the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee.
The No Federal Air Marshals at the Border Act would put them back on airplanes to deal with flier rage incidents. It comes on the heels of an incident last week where a passenger on an American Airlines flight tried to open an emergency door while the plane was flying from Albuquerque to Chicago. Fellow fliers stepped in to tackle the passenger and used zip ties to contain him.
A similar incident took place on a United Airlines flight last March.
During both airline incidents, at least 200 air marshals were assisting at the southern border, according to Mr. Cruz’s office. There has been a shortage of customs and border protection officers and border patrol agents.
The legislation would only allow air marshals to be sent to the border if Mr. Mayorkas gave written proof to Congress that a crisis exists at the border.
“In a brazen act of hypocrisy, the Biden administration maintains that the border is secure, while it continues to reassign air marshals from protecting the skies to the southern border,” the Texas Republican said.
Air marshals started to be sent to the border in 2019, but 80% of deployments have come under the Biden administration.
The mandatory deployments led to air marshals reportedly staging a “mutiny” on the administration in November 2022 over its immigration policies and starting to refuse the mandatory deployments, action which threatened their jobs.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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