(Headline USA) The Biden administration is risking “another 9/11” by removing federal air marshals from airports and planes and transferring them to the southern border, according to the president of the Air Marshal National Council.
Over the past month or so, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has yanked hundreds of air marshals from monitoring flights for potential terror activity and tasked them with clerical work down at the border to assist with the influx of illegal immigrants. According to Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., the highly-trained marshals are being forced to perform welfare checks and do janitorial work at migrant facilities.
In a message to President Joe Biden this week, Sonja Labosco of the Air Marshal National Council accused the president of putting the safety of Americans at risk.
“There have been numerous incidents — a level 4 threat which means someone tried to breach a cockpit two days ago on a Southwest flight … [There was also] a level three incident, [which] means there were life-threatening behaviors on one of those aircraft. An individual had a straight razor to a passenger’s throat. These are very serious incidents,” she said.
“So the message is, ‘Sir, please replace the air marshals on the border. Stop taking them out of the sky and let us do the job that we were trained to do.’”
Marshals sit on commercial flights covertly to monitor potential terror threats. They are normally on 5% of all flights. Their absence on these flights makes another terrorist attack that much more likely, Labosco argued.
“These ground-based duties that they’re pulling us out of the sky to go to are demolishing our chances of stopping another 9/11,” she said.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denied that he is using federal air marshals for janitorial services down at the border, claiming the government has “contract personnel to do that.” However, he also refused to explain why they had been sent down to the border in the first place, and denied once again that there is a crisis at the southern border that requires additional resources.
When asked during a congressional hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee earlier this month if the border was secure, Mayorkas said, “Yes, and we are working day in and day out to enhance security.”
