Five federal departments have agreed to give the FAA a formal safety review of new counter-drone systems, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday. The memorandum of understanding joins DHS with the departments of Transportation, War, Energy and Justice. DHS did not publish its text.

The announcement landed on the day of a counter-drone grant forum at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, where DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton were billed as keynote speakers. States have until November 16 to apply for FEMA’s second $250 million counter-drone round, most of which must pass through to local and tribal agencies.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in the same announcement that border deployments have shown high-energy lasers can work safely alongside civilian aviation. In February, two laser engagements in Texas led the FAA to close airspace twice.

The Agreement Puts the FAA’s Safety Review Into Federal Counter-Drone Development

Under the memorandum, the FAA will quickly run safety risk assessments of proposed counter-drone systems and can add its own measures, including airspace restrictions, when it judges the risk too high. The signatories will work with the FAA and the FCC on technical requirements, field testing and data sharing.

The scope covers systems that detect, track, stop or take control of drones, according to the DHS announcement. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the agreement “establishes a consistent process” for using that equipment without compromising aviation safety.

The White House Task Force to Restore American Airspace Sovereignty led the agreement. President Trump created it in his June 2025 executive order on drone threats, chaired by the national security adviser or a designee. DHS said the memorandum builds on the drone ban along the entire US-Mexico border and on the FAA’s safety assessment of the War Department’s high-energy laser.

Mullin framed it as border policy that will “help counter cartel drone threats.” FBI Director Kash Patel cited the more than 700 drones seized at this summer’s World Cup by federal agents working with state and local officers trained at the FBI’s counter-drone school. Attorney General Todd Blanche pointed to the five men arrested this summer over an alleged plan to fly explosive drones at a White House event, a case whose criminal complaints describe no finished explosive drone.

Police Buying Jammers With FEMA Money Already Coordinate With the FAA

Since July 1, a local agency taking down a drone has followed a Justice and Homeland Security interim final rule. It routes each operations plan through a federal portal for FAA airspace coordination. Air traffic control must hear within five minutes of mitigation starting.

FEMA’s second round, the other half of the $500 million in the July 2025 reconciliation law, is open to all 50 states, the District of Columbia and five territories. FEMA’s program page describes the money as funding to “detect, identify, track, or monitor” drones. Jammers and takeover systems are allowed only for law enforcement and correctional agencies whose officers are trained, or scheduled for training, at the FBI’s National Counter-UAS Training Center.

The first $250 million went last December to 11 states hosting or supporting World Cup matches and the National Capital Region. This time, state administrative agencies file with FEMA by 5 p.m. Eastern on November 16, with project selection expected December 2 and awards December 10. Local agencies apply through their states, and Kansas, Indiana and Mississippi closed their local windows 10 to 12 days before FEMA’s deadline, as DroneXL reported on November 2. Houston’s city council approved its bid on a 47-item consent agenda last week.

The White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics hosted Monday’s forum with DRONERESPONDERS and the Commercial Drone Alliance. The event page listed White House counterterrorism director Sebastian Gorka, JIATF 401 director Matthew Ross and FAA acting deputy administrator Liam McKenna among the keynotes. FEMA had published no transcript or release of Hamilton’s remarks by Monday evening. His agency’s October 16 announcement called unlawful drones “a real and growing danger.”

Hegseth’s Safety Claim Rests on an FAA Finding That Came After Two Texas Closures

Hegseth said lasers can be “deployed rapidly and safely alongside civilian aviation,” and the FAA found on April 10 that the lasers posed no increased risk to fliers. It followed two February laser engagements in Texas that closed airspace, canceled 14 flights and destroyed a roughly $30 million CBP drone.

On February 10, CBP fired a Pentagon-owned LOCUST laser near Fort Bliss at what turned out to be party balloons, and the FAA shut down El Paso’s airspace until the White House intervened hours later. On February 26, soldiers near Fort Hancock used the same system to destroy a drone that belonged to CBP. The agencies had argued for months over whether their legal duty to coordinate with the FAA meant asking permission or giving notice, and the April clearance followed a joint test at White Sands Missile Range. The Pentagon now counts more than 300 border drone defeats this year, and only two targets have been identified in public.

DroneXL’s Take

The FAA review in this memorandum is what federal agencies should have done in February. Since July, a sheriff’s office that wants to switch on a jammer has had to route its plan through FAA airspace coordination and tell air traffic control within five minutes, under a rule anyone can read.

The departments that fired lasers over El Paso before asking the FAA now have their own version of that discipline, but it lives in a document DHS has not released. I’d accept the April safety finding Hegseth can point to. Calling the border record proof that lasers run safely alongside civilian aviation skips the two closures that forced that finding. DHS should publish the memorandum so pilots can read the federal rules as easily as the ones written for their local police.

Sources: DHS announcement, November 9, 2026, DOJ and DHS interim final rule, 28 CFR Part 124, FEMA C-UAS Grant Program, FEMA press release, October 16, 2026, Countering the Threat forum event page, Executive Order 14305.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.