Report: Drones ineffective in securing Mexican border

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last updated 8 January 2015

U.S. Custom and Border Protection (CBP) wants to expand its drone surveillance program by 14 drones that would cost a whopping $443 million, but a recent audit by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General reveals that the drones have been a waste of money, and that their effectiveness has been grossly overestimated.

The Office of Air and Marine calculates that it costs $2,468 per flight hour to operate a drone, but the audit puts that number closer to about $12,255, when operating costs are included. Furthermore, the drones monitored an area 80 percent less extensive than what CBP predicted, and were all but useless on the roughly 200 miles they surveyed; the drones were credited with apprehending less than two percent of illegal immigrants.