Mullin on heat ray weapon: ‘We’re always evaluating technology on the border’

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Wednesday that the department is “always evaluating technology on the border” after receiving a military-grade heat ray from the Pentagon.

CNN reported that the heat ray — officially called the Active Denial System — emits an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves which can reach a little more than half a mile away and causes a burning sensation when it comes into contact with human skin.

Pentagon officials have compared the feeling to the blast of heat when opening an oven, resulting in a 10-15 minute “tingling sensation” that generates “an instinctive and irresistible urge to run from the effect.”

“Well, listen, we’re always evaluating technology on the border,” Mullin told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham during his appearance Wednesday on “The Ingraham Angle.”

“Deterrent is the best option we have, and so any technology we can use to deter people from trying to enter this country illegally, we’re doing that.”

Mullin added that DHS will use “whatever tool we have at our disposal” to prevent migrants from illegally entering the U.S. He said he would not comment on how the technology works but said it was “less lethal or nonlethal,” and the goal is not to deploy lethal forces unless necessary.

“But that’s our goal, or goal is to say, ‘Don’t come across. … Our borders are closed. We’re not Democrats. We’re not going to allow you to come in and take advantage of the American people,'” he said.

It remains unclear how the weapon would be tested and how it might be used, with current and former Customs and Border Protection officials telling CNN there have been internal discussions at DHS about crowd dispersal along the border with Mexico.

A Defense Department official told the outlet that DHS can make an additional request to use the heat ray weapon after its seven-month loan period.

The weapon, developed by Raytheon in Waltham, Mass., was previously deployed for active combat operations in Afghanistan in 2010 but was never used.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that same year it deployed a smaller version of the weapon to “stop or lessen the severity of inmate assaults” at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, Calif., located in the Santa Clarita Valley north of Los Angeles.

The American Civil Liberties Union at the time slammed then-Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca’s announcement about the weapon and urged him not to use it. The nonprofit said the military had evidence that the weapon was “capable of inflicting not only intolerable pain, but death.”

Former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in 2018 said the weapon would not be used amid President Trump’s warnings that “caravans” of migrants were approaching the southern border, The New York Times reported. Nielsen also told an aide that using the weapon must never be brought up again.