Trump Administration Claims Sweeping New Power to Take Down Any Drone it Doesn’t Like

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On January 16 the Trump FAA issued a notice containing a sweeping claim of authority to ban drone flights “in proximity to select locations and mobile assets nationwide” including DHS “ground vehicle convoys and their associated escorts.”

The ban would seem to cover airspace over ground vehicles engaged in the undisciplined, lawless, and violent deportation drive we’re seeing in Minneapolis and other US. cities. Or at least “convoys” of participating vehicles and their “escorts,” whatever those undefined terms are supposed to mean. The order also covers “personnel” where drones are “deemed to pose a credible safety or security threat.” It was announced via a “Notice to Airmen” (NOTAM) — statements issued by the agency to inform pilots about various airspace closures (known as Temporary Flight Restrictions, or TFRs) such as near sporting events.

A big question is how drone operators are supposed to comply with this order. Nobody seems to believe that the FAA is going to post advance notice of ICE and Border Patrol officers’ operations and movements (though that would be very convenient for protesters in Minnesota and elsewhere). As one drone outlet put it,

Unlike traditional Temporary Flight Restrictions, the NOTAM does not provide geographic coordinates, activation times, or public notification when the restriction is in effect near a specific location. Instead, the restricted airspace moves with DHS assets, meaning the no-fly zone can appear wherever ICE or other DHS units operate.

This ridiculous order has created puzzlement and consternation within the US. drone community. It seems to warn that anyone flying a drone anywhere in the country would be in violation if an ICE or Border Patrol “convoy” decides to drive beneath them. Then they “may face,” as the notice states, criminal charges for “violation of national defense airspace” including jail time and/or a $10,000 fine, as well as destruction or seizure of their drone. Such a “drive-under” is actually quite likely in places where thousands of immigration agents are rampaging through neighborhoods such as Minneapolis-St. Paul.

With this notice the government is essentially purporting to give immigration agents sweeping, plenary authority to order virtually any drone out of the sky that they don’t like, and potentially to pursue retaliatory enforcement actions against pilots. Oregon Department of Aviation Director Kenji Sugahara asked the FAA for clarification about this requirement and received a response saying in part:

At any time during [a drone] operation, if the remote pilot/operator is approached by a federal agent and advised they are operating within a TFR, then the remote pilot/operator should cease operation.

Normally requests for TFRs are vetted by the FAA and published for the world to see. The Trump Administration is now giving immigration and other DHS officials the power to conjure a flight restriction on a moment’s notice. Let’s remember too that DHS is comprised of many sub-agencies besides ICE and CBP, ranging from FEMA to the Secret Service to the TSA to various other, more obscure, agencies. Previous FAA “National Security” NOTAMs pertained only to the Defense and Energy Departments and did not include DHS.

This assertion of power is part — though a drastic expansion — of a trend that we’ve seen of law enforcement, and lately, immigration enforcement officers in particular, trying to stop the media and general public from recording their activities with drones. I discussed that issue and its history with regard to the deportation operations in Chicago in October. Given that history, as well as the deportation agencies’ routine targeting of people for First Amendment-protected photography, it’s entirely predictable how they will use this blank-check power: to go after drones they don’t like because they are being operated by media outlets or others seeking to document immigration operations.

As we pointed out regarding the October Chicago ban, and as drone expert Dawn Zoldi discusses with regards to this new order, it would be a violation of the Constitution for officials to ban drone photography while permitting other drone operations such as deliveries, infrastructure inspections, or mapping. As Zoldi points out, in addition to inviting selective enforcement, the uncertainty this rule creates introduces significant chilling effects against drone journalism, as many will hesitate to risk punishment by putting their drones in the air at all, especially in cities that are swarming with federal agents.

We’ve been fighting to stop this
This stunning power grab follows several years of efforts by US security and law enforcement agencies to expand their power over drone operators. In 2023-24, I represented the ACLU as the lone representative of civil liberties groups on an FAA advisory committee in which the agency sought stakeholder (mostly industry and law enforcement) views on how to counter the (very real) security threats that drones can pose. The ACLU’s primary concern was that, as we said in the advisory group’s final report, “security imperatives be properly balanced against the… civil liberties of the public, and… that the agency be mindful that ‘security’ has been and likely will again be used to try to block legal photography.” We supported a recommendation for “clear and regular processes by which rules prohibiting drones from flying in certain spaces can be enforced.” And we warned that the counter-drone authorities contemplated by the advisory report were too broad, and that “We don’t want law enforcement officers to end up with what amounts to a plenary power to take down any drone they wish.”

The current order creates a process that is anything but “clear and regular,” seems highly likely to expand the misuse of security rationales to block legal drone photography, and does in fact create a sweeping power for DHS officials to take down nearly any drone they like.

On Capitol Hill, we and allies made similar warnings in opposing counter-drone legislation that was passed in 2019, and again when the Biden administration in 2022 proposed a bill expanding those authorities that represented essentially a security-agency wish-list of counter-drone authorities unbalanced by civil liberties protections. To take just one example, it affirmatively applied to drones the American policing profession’s corrupt and abusive practice of civil asset forfeiture, in which police seize people’s belongings without proof of wrongdoing, giving law enforcement agencies a “profit motive” to engage in unjustified over-enforcement.

We and allied groups repeatedly warned that “this proposed text would give the authorities broad latitude to engage in” abusive drone take-downs to stop photography by reporters “while providing no means of challenge or redress.” Powerful members of Congress also objected to the proposal, and it was held up for several years — until December 2025, when the Trump Administration pushed through broad language echoing the Biden proposal by attaching it to a must-pass Defense Department funding measure.

Now we see it didn’t take long for the Trump Administration and its FAA to assert exactly the sweeping powers we’ve been concerned about. Pending further information it’s unclear how much of this seemingly impossible-to-comply-with order will survive court challenge, but one thing we can count on is that government agencies — especially during this administration — will continue to seek control of the skies to block drone photography of their behavior.