Coast Guard: Actions Needed to Improve Maritime Interdictions

What GAO Found The Coast Guard, a multi-mission military service within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), uses its resources—including assets such as vessels and aircraft—to conduct its drug and migrant interdiction missions. Given limited resources, the Coast Guard made tradeoffs to address a significant increase in maritime migration levels that began in 2021. Specifically, it redirected assets to migrant interdiction that it had originally allocated to other missions, such as drug interdiction.

This impacted its ability to conduct those other missions. The Coast Guard did not meet its primary drug interdiction performance target in fiscal years 2015 through 2024, and did not meet its primary migrant interdiction target for 6 years during the same period. See figures below.

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