Alejandro Mayorkas Secretary Department of Homeland Security David Pekoske Administrator Transportation Security Administration Tirrell Stevenson Director Federal Air Marshal service Secretary Mayorkas and Director Stevenson, |lam writing to you today in reference to the forced deployments of Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) to the southern border. It is known that these highly skilled FAMs are being made to perform mainly non-law enforcement civilian humanitarian duties There have been two major security incidents on aircraft within the past few weeks in which the media has indicated there were no FAMS on board. ‘According to the Washington Post on November 11, 2022 3 man boarded a Frontier flight 1761 with two box cutters, The man threatened to stab the passengers and crew and had to be subdued by other passengers. The flight was forced to divert and ‘the suspect was taken into custody, Most recently, according to the Post, antother man was allowed to board Jet Blue flight 871 with a small edged weapon. The suspect placed the edged weapon to the throat of at least one passenger. He was later arrested and charged with several federal offenses. According to the Federal Aviation Administration year to daté there have been 2,178 reports of unruly passengers, 767 investigations initiated, and 517 enforcement actions taken. Not to mention the fact there has been ‘two attempted attacks on our homelahd)since 9-11 during the holiday season. Your policy of forcing FAMs to deployito the southern border is extremely concerning given the time of year and the recent incidents of violence on American flagged aircraft. As it stands today, we believe that many FAMS will refuse to deploy, believing the order is reckless and leaving our country vulnerable to attack. In at jeast one ease, a FAM is being told he has to deploy even though he informed ‘the agency he has no child café.\The agencies only response has been that he will get written up and face termination Your policy ha8 resulted ima complete loss of confidence in Secretary Mayorkas, FAM Director Stevenson, and Administrator Pekoske’s ability to lead DHS/TSA/FAMS. On behalf of our membership, stop these dangerous and irresponsible deployments before our adversaries take advantage of the opportunity this policy has provided Dawid L onde David Londo President- Air Marshal National Council