Case Studies

US border drone, fence reports

by Mark Rowe

In the United States, as the lead federal agency charged with securing US borders, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has employed a variety of technologies and assets to assist with border security. CBP operates a fleet of remotely piloted Predator B UAS and uses aerostats, including tactical aerostats; and Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS) at eight fixed sites across the southern US border and in Puerto Rico. The US federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to review CBP’s use of UAS and aerostats for border security.

A report asks: 1) How does CBP use UAS and aerostats for border security activities, and to what extent has CBP developed and documented procedures for UAS coordination? and 2) To what extent has CBP taken actions to assess the effectiveness of its UAS and aerostats for border security activities?

For the full 68-page report visit the GAO website.

The auditors found that without documented coordination procedures in all operating locations consistent with internal control standards, CBP does not have reasonable assurance that practices in all operating locations align with policies and procedures for joint operations with other federal and non-federal US government agencies.

Border Patrol reported apprehending over 300,000 illegal entrants and seizing over one million pounds (by weight) of marijuana and 10,000 pounds of cocaine in the fiscal year 2015.

Meanwhile in a separate report on fencing, the GAO found that CBP collects data that could help provide insight into how border fencing contributes to border security operations, including the location of illegal entries. However, CBP has not developed metrics that systematically use these, among other data it collects, to assess the contributions of border fencing to its mission. For example, CBP could potentially use these data to determine the extent to which border fencing diverts illegal entrants into more rural, remote parts.

The CBP spent, between 2007 and 2015, $2.4 billion on TI (‘tactical infrastructure’) such as gates and 654 miles of fences along the 2000-mile US-Mexico border. As long ago as the 1990s, Border Patrol began installing border fence at San Diego. Officials there told auditors that pedestrian fencing, and manpower and surveillance, assisted in diverting a large share of illicit cross-border activity away from the densely populated urban areas near San Diego and into more rural and remote parts east of the city.

Between 2010 and 2015, CBP recorded a total of 9,287 breaches in pedestrian fencing. As a comparison, older ‘legacy’ pedestrian fencing was breached (for instance by bolt or pipe cutters) at an average rate of 82 breaches per fence mile, compared to an average of 14 breaches per fence mile of modern pedestrian fencing (for instance by portable power tools).

Tucson area officials told the audit of illegal entrants trying to use ramps to drive vehicles up and over vehicle fencing in the sector as well as burrowing under legacy pedestrian fencing. Page 29 of the 75-page report shows photos as examples.

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