I think Perry did respond with some of your points this morning. He definitely said that national guard could do logistics so that BP could focus on screening and anti-drug activities.
On Hannity he was emphasizing drones for surveillance rather than your Lakotas but he was talking about them being operated by NG/military.
And optics are going to be needed to overcome the message that Obama sent .. that todos will have promisos
I haven't operated with CBP drones, but they suck a huge portion of the CBP Air budget and until they slapped a new ground radar on it they hadn't produced much product for the cost. The new tech on the drones is a game changer, but it could be a game changer on a manned aircraft also. The CBP drone program came about a decade too soon. Had they waited a decade they could have skipped 10 years filled with massive growing pains trying to fly drones in U.S. airspace. They are locked in a specific altitude block so you need virtually clear skies to be fully operational. You can't fly through weather and definitely not through icing so your launch and recovery site has to remain VFR for the duration of your flight. The launch and recovery crew is much larger than for a conventional aircraft. You have to reserve satellite time even if you aren't flying, which I think goes for $8 a minute. There comes a point where you have to ask what am I getting for all this expenditure?