Coming in the wake of Biden allowing a Chinese surveillance balloon to traverse the United States, this report is hard to swallow. The United States will be junking the very same, highly effective surveillance technology that our prime strategic competitor deploys against us. And for the worst possible reason.

Fox News reports

The Biden administration is significantly reducing the number of aerostats being used to monitor the overwhelmed southern border, with multiple sources telling Fox News that it is due to a lack of funding -- with a majority already being taken out of service.

Last year there were 12 aerostats, nicknamed "Eyes in the Sky" by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), along the southern border. CBP sources tell Fox that only four remain now, all in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.

CBP’s Air and Marine Operations uses the aerostats for detection and monitoring along the southern border and coastal regions. The Department of Defense, which agreed to spend $52 million to continue operating aerostats through to the end of FY 2022, which ended in October, after the Department of Homeland Security cut funding for the program. 

Last year, the Biden administration added a balloon in Nogales, Arizona. A CBP spokesman told local media that the technology has been used along the border since 2013, that the blimp in question has a range of 3,000 feet above ground level and allows Border Patrol to "maintain visual awareness of border activity in the United States for longer periods of time."

Nogales surveillance balloon (YouTube screengrab)

But with that funding gone, authorities are phasing out most of the balloons along the border and sources said only a handful will remain through March 31st.

The Biden administration is blinding our eyes in the sky. Citing cost as the reason to end use of the cheap technology of balloons makes zero sense. There can be little doubt that it wants to remove an impediment to -- and evidence of – a massive invasion of the country.