WASHINGTON — The Homeland Security Department’s border drones program costs far more than the government estimates, helps in the arrests of just a fraction of the number of people trying to cross the border illegally and flies far fewer hours than the government claims, an internal watchdog asserted in a report released Tuesday.
Inspector General John Roth said in his report that the Predator B drones flown along the border by Customs and Border Protection are “dubious achievers.”
The Customs and Border Protection agency doesn’t have any performance measures, so the agency can’t prove that the program is effective, it said.
The CBP did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Customs and Border Protection planned to operate four 16-hour drone patrols a day, for about 23,290 total flight hours during the 2013 budget year that ended Sept. 30, 2013. But Roth’s audit found that the planes were actually in the air for about 5,100 hours, or roughly 22 percent of the planned flight time.