Border securityImmigration reform conditioned on border being secured by unmanned vehicles

The bipartisan immigration proposal  drafted by the bipartisan Gang of Eight includes a provision which would create a 24/7 border surveillance system  heavily dependent on the use of drones.

The Miami Herald reports that under the legislation, immigrants with provisional status would not be able to apply for a green card if DHS does not effectively secure the border first. In an effort to secure the border, the bill recommends increasing the use of unmanned vehicles both in the air and on the ground, to be controlled by groups tasked with what the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) describes as  scouting out “potential terrorist and illegal cross-border missions.”

CBP currently owns ten UAVs, which are used to monitor border areas where sensors detect a large animal or a group of people.

The drone provision in the bill has its critics, who highlight  the program’s high costs and questionable effectiveness. Some consider the provision as an effort by the bill writers to appear  tough on the issue of border security, but without  actually increasing security.

“There’s been no evidence that (drones) have protected the homeland,” Tom Barry, director of the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy, a liberal Washington, D.C. think tank, told the Miami Herald. “It’s just a political measure to show border security credentials of the immigration reform.”

Between 2006 and 2011, CBP spent $55.3 million on drone use and maintenance operations, according to a DHS Inspector General (IG) report. Congress has only appropriated $12.6 million for these costs this year.

The IG report recommended that the agency stop buying drones because the aircrafts are costly to maintain and have flown significantly less than their predicted flight times.

“CBP has not adequately planned to fund unmanned aircraft-related equipment,” such as ground-control stations, ground-support equipment, cameras, and navigation systems, the inspector general report said. “As a result of CBP’s insufficient funding approach, future UAS (unmanned aerial systems) missions may have to be curtailed.”

CBP’s drone program was responsible for apprehending less than .04 percent of people attempting to enter the country illegally, and for less than 3 percent of all drug seizures identified by border agents, according to an agency report.

Privacy advocates are also worried that drones could unintentionally collect information on U.S. citizens living near the border.

“Even if the official policy is against domestic spying, we don’t know how that translates into actual practice,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union told the Miami Herald. “They’re still looking at things from the air – what happens if they see something of interest? Are they going to notify the law enforcement?”

The agency has yet to issue an operations and maintenance budget request for the drone program, although DHS has recommended them to do so.