{"id":163764,"date":"2026-02-13T22:01:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T22:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/163764\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T22:01:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T22:01:06","slug":"watch-laser-incident-that-caused-el-paso-airspace-closure-was-joint-agency-mission-noem-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/163764\/","title":{"rendered":"WATCH: Laser incident that caused El Paso airspace closure was &#8216;joint agency&#8217; mission, Noem says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sais Friday that the government was &#8220;continuing to work on communication&#8221; regarding a laser incident in El Paso, Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the clip in the video player above.<\/p>\n<p>Noem was addressing a reporter&#8217;s question about Customs and Border Protection&#8217;s use of an anti-drone laser earlier this week that led the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/nation\/faa-lifts-airspace-shutdown-over-el-paso-after-announcing-10-day-closure-hours-earlier\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FAA to shut down airspace<\/a> over El Paso for several hours. A source familiar with the situation told AP that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/nation\/pentagon-faa-dispute-over-lasers-to-thwart-cartel-drones-led-to-airspace-closure-ap-sources-say\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">laser was deployed<\/a> without coordinating with the FAA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/what-caused-the-sudden-and-confusing-closure-of-el-pasos-airspace\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WATCH: What caused the sudden and confusing closure of El Paso&#8217;s airspace<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Noem seemed to acknowledge the chaos the event caused.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This was a joint agency task force mission that was undertaken and we&#8217;re continuing to work on the communication through that,&#8221; Noem said during an Arizona event.<\/p>\n<p>The abrupt shutdown led to confusion in the city of 700,000 on the Mexican border.<\/p>\n<p>\n                    A free press is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy.\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"invite_body\">\n                    Support trusted journalism and civil dialogue.\n                <\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/give.newshour.org\/page\/88646\/donate\/1?ea.tracking.id=pbs_news_sept_2025_article&amp;supporter.appealCode=N2509AW1000100\" class=\"donation-link ga-click-funding ga-click-ender-funding\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    Donate now<\/p>\n<p>                <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sais Friday that the government was &#8220;continuing to work on communication&#8221; regarding a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-163764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}