Steve Daines: Biden Must ‘Immediately’ Take Air Marshals Off Border, Put them Back on U.S. Flights

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) is asking President Joe Biden to “immediately” take Federal Air Marshals off the United States-Mexico border and put them back on domestic commercial flights where they are needed.

Just before Thanksgiving, Air Marshal National Council Director Sonya LaBosco warned that the Biden administration has “depleted” resources for U.S. flights by stationing Air Marshals at the southern border or having them follow individuals the federal government associates with the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol building.

“We are ushering in illegal immigrants on the border and leaving the traveling public unsafe,” LaBosco told Fox News:

We’re either on the border for illegal immigrants or we’re following folks from January 2021. We’re not doing our regular missions where we’re out there looking for the bad guys. So right now, on most flights, you’re not going to have air marshals. [Emphasis added]

This week, in a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Daines asked officials to begin recalling Air Marshals from the border and putting them back on U.S. flights.

“With the holiday travel season in full swing and the heightened threat environment, it is critical that [Air Marshals] are safeguarding our skies, not cleaning up the Biden administration’s mess at the southern border,” Daines writes:

Reassigning [Air Marshals] from their duties protecting the skies to handing out water at the border, especially during the busiest travel season of the year and at a time when the threat of attacks against Americans is at the highest level in years, is an ill-advised and ineffective way to mitigate the crisis at the border. Instead, the Biden administration should take concrete and aggressive steps to actually secure our border including, but not limited to, finishing the border wall, tightening asylum standards, ending its abuse of parole authority, and ending the disastrous policy of “catch and release.” [Emphasis added]

Ensuring the safety and security of the traveling public should be the sole focus and responsibility of [Air Marshals]. I urge you to immediately recall all [Air Marshals] from the southern border and cease from engaging in this practice in the future. [Emphasis added]

In July of last year, Breitbart News exclusively reported how Biden’s DHS had assigned Air Marshals to the border to escort border crossers and illegal aliens before their release into American communities.

Months later, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) revealed that he had gotten word that Air Marshals had been taken off U.S. flights and assigned to conduct welfare checks on illegal aliens as well as janitorial work at the border.

At the same time, Biden’s Transporation Security Administration (TSA) announced that additional Air Marshals would be deployed to the border in Texas, Arizona, and California.

“We’re on less than one percent of flights,” LaBosco said at the time of the new deployment. “These ground-based duties that they’re pulling us out of the sky to go to the border are just demolishing our chances at stopping another 9/11.”

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.