The draft defense policy bill released over the weekend includes the authorization needed to formally set up a new center to coordinate northern border security, with its future home at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Macomb County, Mich. (Selfridge Air National Guard Base/Facebook)
WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — The draft defense policy bill released over the weekend includes the authorization needed to formally set up a new center to coordinate northern border security, with its future home at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Macomb County, Mich.
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2025 says the Department of Homeland Security secretary within a year shall establish the Northern Border Mission Center, whose purpose is to serve as a “forward deployed centralized operations support center for domain awareness, information sharing, intelligence, training and stakeholder engagement” with federal, state, tribal, local and international government partners along the northern border.
The defense policy bill uses language proposed in a separate bill by Sens. Gary Peters, D- Bloomfield Township, and Susan Collins, R- Maine. The text is written in such a way that only Selfridge would qualify as the site of the center because of the various DHS components and personnel that it must be situated with it, Peters said.
“This is a big deal. We’re very excited about getting this into NDAA ... so this is fully good to go,” Peters told The Detroit News on Monday.
“Now this becomes a formal mission for the Department of Homeland Security. This is really good news for Selfridge. It puts Selfridge at the center of coordination efforts for DHS to make sure we secure the northern border.”
Peters, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security panel, noted that he secured $3 million for the new center in a government spending bill adopted earlier this year, so it’s already funded.
Peters’ bill required the center to be located along the northern border at the same site as an existing U.S. Border Patrol sector headquarters, an Air and Marine operations branch of the Customs & Border Protection and a U.S. Coast Guard air station, among other components already existing at Selfridge.
Also key for Selfridge is its proximity to two of the busiest border crossings in North America ― Detroit and Port Huron, Peters said.
“It’s ideally situated for them to monitor trade and provide oversight across the entire length of the northern border, from sea to sea,” Peters said.
The new center would be established as President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to end the flow of drugs and migrants across southern and northern borders. Trump has also said he’ll impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico.
The U.S. Border Patrol made 23,721 arrests at the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024, compared with 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in the month of October alone.
This latest version of the NDAA is likely to be adopted after being negotiated between House and Senate lawmakers in recent weeks and months. The House is expected to consider it and vote later this week.
The bill, which authorizes the new center for three years through 2027, also requires a report on the Department of Homeland Security’s operations of large unmanned aircraft systems, including recommendations on how to enable the operations of large unmanned aircraft systems based at the center.
Such unmanned aircraft systems aren’t currently operated out of Selfridge, in part due to complexities related to its proximity to a major commercial airport, Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Peters said.
“We have to figure out all the protocols, the procedures needed to operate larger unmanned aircraft in proximity to commercial aircraft traffic,” Peters said.
“It’s something we have to do because the future will mean more unmanned aircraft in the air, particularly reconnaissance and missions along those lines. We have to be able to that in populated with commercial aircraft as well as other rural areas.”
The new center could provide more long-term stability for Selfridge, whose future has been unsettled with the expected retirement of the A-10 squadron there and the expansion of its tanker mission.
The A-10 mission has long served as the backbone of the Harrison Township base, which is over 100 years old and supports an estimated 5,000 jobs in the community, according to state figures.
The U.S. Air Force announced in January that it had chosen Selfridge to host a new squadron of 12 KC-46A Pegasus refueling tankers as the military looks to retire the base’s aging KC-135 Stratotankers, pending the results of a planned environmental impact analysis in 2025. The KC-46As are projected to start arriving in 2029.
Peters and other Michigan lawmakers say they’re continuing to push for another fighter mission to replace the A-10s at Selfridge.
The draft NDAA text also includes a requirement that the U.S. Air Force to provide a comprehensive plan for recapitalizing National Guard air wings, Peters said.
“This now formalizes the Air Force to come forward and give us a plan ― not just for Selfridge but obviously other bases that are losing their fighter wings,” he said.
“We need to have a plan and when we get that plan we’re in a (better) position to fight for Selfridge and to ask probing questions as to how this is moving forward in the future.”
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