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The Obama administration announced this week that while it would be reducing its 1000-strong national guard presence on the US-Mexico border, the use of unmanned drones will increase. While it is now common knowledge that armed unmanned drones have been used for years on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, most Americans are unaware that drones are flying anywhere near the US. The Mexican government confirmed in March of this year that it has been allowing the US to fly unarmed drones along the border to improve intelligence on Mexico’s increasingly violent drug war, but it was back in 2005 under President George W Bush that the decision to use drones on the border was first made. Currently there are eight drones along both US borders – three on the Canada border, and 5 on the Mexico border. There is a sixth drone planned for deployment along the Southwest border. The drones are allowed to penetrate as deep as six miles into Mexico, and are favored by Congress’ so-called Drone Caucus, a group of lawmakers eager to increase domestic deployment of the technology. While the drones are ostensibly meant to monitor the US-Mexico border in relation to the drug war, the Department of Homeland Security touts its success in nabbing undocumented immigrants making their way to the US. However, the drones end up playing a small role. There were more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants detained at the border in 2011 alone. But only about 5000 undocumented immigrants were spotted by drones before being arrested over the past 6 years, with only 238 of them being identified as drug traffickers. The US government has thus far spent $240 million in purchasing and maintaining these domestic unmanned drones. Meanwhile earlier this month, Homeland Security released a report showing that the numbers of undocumented immigrants arrested at the border are at an all time low – the lowest since the 1970s.

GUEST: John Gibler, author of To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War, as well as Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt