[TWZ] U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been flying its Predator B drones, also commonly referred to by their military variant designation of MQ-9 Reapers, over Los Angeles as part of the U.S. government’s response to the unrest there, the agency confirmed to us on Wednesday. The flights are in response to protests that escalated to violence on multiple occasions, following a massive operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last Friday.
Persistent aerial surveillance like this has long been controversial, with civil rights advocates saying it violates the right to privacy and undermines the Constitution. At the same time, the fact that a drone is doing it largely evokes a uniquely upsetting response. While using the Predator Bs over urban locales is rare, it’s not unprecedented, and manned platforms do this kind of work every day across the country.
CBP’s Air and Marine Operations (AMO) “MQ-9 Predators are supporting our federal law enforcement partners in the Greater Los Angeles area, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with aerial support of their operations,” spokesman John Mennell told us Wednesday afternoon in response to our query earlier this week. “Additionally, they are providing officer safety surveillance when requested by officers. AMO is not engaged in the surveillance of First Amendment activities.”
CBP had been mum about the issue for days, even though open-source reporting on social media had already presented compelling evidence of the drones’ orbits. On June 9, user @Aeroscout on X posted air traffic control (ATC) audio stating that two “Q-9s” – call signs TROY 703 and TROY 701, had passed each other in airspace over Yuma, Arizona, as one was replacing the other over Los Angeles. @Aeroscout had previously posted ATC audio of TROY 701 checking in on Los Angeles Center Sector 09. A short time later, Alaska Flight 1020 was given a traffic advisory for “drone traffic.”
While there has not yet been any explicit identification of the “Q-9s” as CBP Predator Bs, TROY is a known Department of Homeland Security (DHS) callsign. TROY 314, a CBP Multi-Role Enforcement Aircraft (MEA) based on the Beechcraft King Air 350ER twin-engine turboprop, and a CBP Black Hawk helicopter using the callsign TROY 212, were also tracked over Los Angeles this weekend.
Furthermore, plane trackers using online software first began noticing aircraft flying hexagonal patterns over Los Angeles on Sunday. Though not always the case, this is indicative of CBP Predator B surveillance patterns observed in the past. This includes the use of one of the CBP Q-9s over Minneapolis back in 2020.
CBP has MQ-9s at three locations: the National Air Security Operations Centers in Sierra Vista, Arizona (located on Fort Huachuca), San Angelo in Texas, and Grand Forks in North Dakota. 
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