U.S. Contends with Unprecedented Illegal Immigration

The U.S. Border Patrol credited its eyes in the sky for leading agents to more than fifty-thousand immigrants who illegally crossed the nation’s southern border during the outgoing fiscal year.

The agency attributed the apprehensions of 51,248 illegal immigrants and the seizure of 2,238-pounds of narcotics directly to the strategic use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)—known colloquially as drones—over the U.S. federal fiscal year ending 30 September 2022.

Persons and organizations intent on illegally entering the United States often resort to extreme means, the particulars of which largely preclude conventional interdiction. Therefore, to ever-increasing degrees, federal law enforcement agents at America’s land, air, and sea borders have utilized UAVs to identify, track, and apprehend illegal aliens.

UAVs, however, are also employed by cartels engaged in smuggling people, drugs, firearms, and currency into and out of the contiguous United States. Over the decade encompassing 2012 through 2022, federal police stationed at the U.S. southern border saw a surge in instances of cartel-operated drones transporting small bundles of narcotics from Mexico to complicit recipients on the U.S. side.

Contemporary drones are capable of functioning at several miles’ remove from their operators. Furthermore, some UAV models can be programmed to proceed autonomously to and from predesignated coordinates—thereby greatly emboldening their operators. Even if law enforcement agents intercept such drones and confiscate their cargos, the devices’ provisioners and pilots remain comfortably at large.

Combating unmanned aerial smuggling is a paradoxical business. Modern UAVs are too small and low-flying to easily track on radar; too fast to pursue terrestrially, especially over challenging terrain; and capable of releasing their cargos while airborne—thereby eliminating the need to land. Ergo, it is nigh impossible for Border Patrol agents to tie UAVs to prosecutable individuals.  

What’s more, even in the highly-unlikely event a Border Patrol agent’s eyes and ears prove sufficiently sharp to detect a UAV in flight over the Sonoran Desert’s desolate vastness, he is prohibited by federal regulation from utilizing his firearm to shoot the contraption down. Counter-drone tools, though readily accessible to private individuals, have yet to be approved for use by federal agencies and their personnel.

FMI: www.cbp.gov