'Disturbing' new tactics: Mexican cartels use ultralight aircraft to smuggle illegals into U.S.
Border Patrol agents tracked an ultralight aircraft as it crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and made it 30 miles into the country early Tuesday morning — and when they got to the landing spot, they found two Chinese men who had been smuggled in by the aircraft.
The ultralight had escaped, lifting back off and returning to Mexico, but agents say they did manage to nab a Mexican man waiting in a vehicle near the landing zone in southern California, apparently ready to pick up the Chinese men and deliver them to their destination.
Experts said they had seen ultralights, small aircraft powered by lawn mower-sized engines, used to drop loads of drugs in the U.S. But they were surprised to see them being used to ferry illegal immigrants.
“It’s disturbing,” said Chris Harris, who retired this year after a two-decade career as a Border Patrol agent in San Diego and who suggested it could be a way for cartels to get dangerous people across the border. “If you want to get some operatives in this country very quickly, that’s a way.”
Gloria I. Chavez, chief patrol agent in the El Centro sector of the Border Patrol, agreed that ultralights pose a threat to “national security.”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/19/ultralight-aircraft-used-smuggle-illegals-mexico-u/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork