High Crimes in Low Airspace: The Rise of Drones in Cross-Border Drug Trafficking

Authors

Hannah Haight, Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of LawFollow

Abstract

Can the United States effectively regulate its airspace when criminal actors exploit it without entering traditional territorial channels? Mexican drug trafficking organizations increasingly deploy drones to deliver narcotics across the U.S.–Mexico border. These flights often occur at low altitudes, at night, and in remote areas, which renders them nearly undetectable by conventional enforcement methods. Yet, no statute squarely addresses the use of drones in cross-border drug trafficking. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates drones under the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, but its mandate is safety, not interdiction. The result? A growing technological asymmetry: criminal cartels innovate, while the law remains outdated.

International law fares no better. Treaties like the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Vienna Convention) criminalize drug trafficking and encourage international cooperation; however, they assume traditional actors and manual modes of transport. What happens when the trafficker is an autonomous system launched from sovereign soil and recovered by accomplices on the other side? The principle of territoriality falters and jurisdictional lines blur, while traffickers face minimal risk. If the drone crashes, there is no mule to arrest. If it succeeds, the payload is delivered efficiently, silently, and lucratively.

This Comment argues that drug trafficking via drones poses an urgent threat to national sovereignty and public health.

Current legal frameworks are insufficient and structurally unprepared for the strategic and operational realities of drone smuggling. The response must be multi-layered: statutory reforms that explicitly prohibit drone-based drug delivery, enhanced surveillance and detection systems; airspace restrictions near the border, and international agreements adapted to drones. However, these solutions are not enough. As long as the United States remains the largest consumer of opioids in the world, enforcement solutions will amount to a stopgap. Supply will always meet demand.

If left unaddressed, the legal void surrounding drug trafficking via drones could establish a dangerous precedent, an argumentum ex silentio. The silence of the law becomes its own kind of permission. The longer regulatory inertia persists, the more the airspace above the U.S.–Mexico border risks becoming contested and controlled by drug traffickers.

Recommended Citation

Hannah Haight, High Crimes in Low Airspace: The Rise of Drones in Cross-Border Drug Trafficking, 90 J. Air L. & Com. 327 (2025)