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Drones Cost $28,000 Per Arrest, On Average
mpicpp sends this report from CNN:
They are sleek, mostly silent converted weapons of war: Drones used by the Border Patrol to scan the skies in the empty deserts of the Southwest to spot illegal immigrants and then, if things work out, have agents arrest them. That's the idea, and the agents who use them say the drones give them a vantage point they never had before. Flying at 18,000 feet, the drones view the landscape below, lock onto potential suspects crossing the Arizona desert, and agents on the ground move into make the arrests. But it's outrageously expensive: $28,000 for a single arrest.
Let's assume for a moment that they're serious about deporting people.
What's the cost if they get through, and have to be tracked down by traditional methods? What's the cost of putting more people there to achieve the same level of effectiveness? What's the cost of flying conventional aircraft to do the job?
When pitted against those methods by comparison, $28,000 might actually not be all that bad.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Instead of using a multi million dollar Predator drone to scan the border, perhaps they should be using something smaller and cheaper like a beefed up version of a Parrot drone instead.
Do we really need something that flies at 18,000 feet to patrol the border?
Besides the creepy, WWII-axis-power name, they are in essense a sanctioned thugs who kill without consequences, just like those on the DDR Wall.
Getting lots of money to War, Inc. is the *goal*; the way it's dressed up doesn't really matter that much.
scan the skies in the empty deserts of the Southwest to spot illegal immigrants
Hey guys, I think I see the problem.
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
except for the military, naturally. Republicans love them some war boners.
The metric "$ per suspect catched" is pretty much meaningless. If they have 1 suspect for the whole year and do arrest him, the cost per arrest will be their yearly budget - and guess what? The border still needs to be guarded. The important numbers would be the the cost increase/decrease vs drone-less operation and the percent of trespassers missed.
Usually I've found in my 47 years on this planet that people complaining about the expense of something are perfectly willing to spend that money on some other absurdity when it suits their particular bias.
In this context, for example, people are shocked that it costs $28,000 per arrest to use drones to catch illegals. Likely, the people crying about the outrageous cost are perfectly willing to spend $28000 in legal services, assistance, aid, return transport, etc for those same illegals. Heritage.org (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/05/the-fiscal-cost-of-unlawful-immigrants-and-amnesty-to-the-us-taxpayer) claims that the net cost per immigrant household to the US taxpayer is about $14k/year alone.
Personally, I think immigrants are the soul of this country and always have been. It would be nice if we could simplify our immigration system to allow as many people to come here without the absurd multi-year waiting list that they have today, but it seems unfair to allow the lawbreakers - the ones coming illegally - to get a free pass.
-Styopa
Seems like another carefully-planted article meant to dissuade Americans from the idea of protecting the country's borders:
WTF? Law enforcement is not about just costs — it is also a deterrent. If 9 out of 10 illegals got caught and promptly deported, the word would spread around very quickly and the attempts would cease to a trickle compared to the ongoing flood.
But the sitting President's Party, facing such a severe disillusionment of existing Americans, desperately needs new ones — hoping for their votes based on sheer gratitude...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
it would seem fixed zeppelins would be much better suited as a border surveillance platform. They dont move and give you a constant birds eye view and can watch a lot of area.
...is the cost of one hellfire-missile. You do the math how many have to be "deported" with one shot so it would be more economical.
(captcha: disaster.. how fitting...)
...considering we spent around 250,000 rounds of ammo per kill in Iraqistan.
What do these arrests cost without drone use? What do the arrests save from otherwise criminal behavior?
Stop the problem permanently.
Can you really put a price on oppression? Not everything has to be about the bottom line.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Supreme Allied Commander
Bet you could cut costs by two or three orders of magnitude. A moving drone seems like not quite the right platform for this sort of thing, since you're watching a fixed border.
Exactly. Because military is one of the very few things, which is the government's actual responsibility per the Constitution.
Most of the rest is just that — unconstitutional:
The lost "War on Poverty", which we've been fighting for the last 50 years, has cost us — inflation-adjusted — $22 trillion or, roughly three times more than all actual wars combined since founding of the Republic .
Please, don't hate.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... oh.. motor cycle.. gas.. maintenance.. food... accomodation.. obamacare.. paid off time and vacations.. guns and ammo.. training..
Pretty soon you won't be able to go camping or take a walk without being watched by a drone. Of course, you wouldn't even get that far if your license plate wasn't in order since that will have been scanned dozens of times during your trip.
If we(all of us) stop employing the illegal immigrants they will stop jump, tunneling, bussing, boating, and swimming to the US. How about instead of buying guns and drones we set up databases and fine the companies and people employing folks illegally. Its simple.
I lived in Nevada and the landlord used to complain every day about all the illegals in the area. I got frustrated with her one day and stated if you stop employing them to paint, do yard work, and cook they would all leave or at least stop coming here.
Farmers need some method to get folks willing to help to the farms, that system has to be in place along side the other ones.
Once the Nancy pelosi's and others employing them as maids and gardeners get fined and put in prison this will end. You will never stop this with drones or guns. Stop the Money and you stop the problem. At this point in time, I'd jump the fence and take the chance just like they are in their positions.
Taking a vacation to america to have a baby has to end also. Its an archaic method that has to stop.
At first glance I was prepared to say, "Expensive compared to what?" I was initially prepared to support the drone program. But when I read TFA and got some details, I think it would be fair to say that this drone program is something of a failure.
The border is always in the same place, and therefore the same areas are being patrolled. You don't need a drone to do that. Couldn't you practically accomplish the same thing with observation blimps at a much lower cost? Sure, it doesn't quite have the same "cool" factor, but I would wager it could get the job done.
Proverbs 21:19
OF course we could just fine anyone an outrageous amount if the hire an illegal. Stop the problem at the demand side.
This seems to be the approach they use for file downloads.
Should we start analyzing the US military's cost per kill of enemy combatants last year?
The lost "War on Poverty", which we've been fighting for the last 50 years, has cost us — inflation-adjusted — $22 trillion or, roughly three times more than all actual wars combined since founding of the Republic
Anyone who thinks that the US has spent less than 7 trillion dollars on war, total, and adjusted for inflation, is cherry-picking from a very conservative data set. No wonder the linked article doesn't give a citation for that figure.
There is an ad for a drone at the top of this article. Coincidence?
So a million greenbacks will pay for 35 wetbacks.
captcha: racist
I thought the drone that the article was talking about are the small ones available on Amazon.com for $75. oops.
Please, don't hate.
Ho ho ho, that's rich coming from you.
Take the development cost plus all of the manufacturing costs and divide by the number of arrests so far....
So with every arrest, the average price decreases! Let's see it in 10 years.
A supermajority of voters favor deficit spending, so that's the policy we currently have. Amortize the deficit across everyone, and you'll find that all households cost "the taxpayer" many thousands of dollars per year.
Next time you hear a friend is pregnant, tell 'em, "Nice immigration loophole you found there, asshole." ;-)
I believe that illegal immgration from Mexico has fallen 50 or 75 percent since the start of the recession in 2008, so the cost per interdicted illegal will go way up.
The math is really an interesting question. Assuming the border is 2,500 kilometers wide. There is about 31.5 million seconds in a year. So, around 78.8 trillion meter seconds per year on the US border.
Only 300,000 illegals per year on the border. So, there is a 3.8 billionths probability of an illegal crossing a meter of US border each second. 300,000 people per year sounds like a lot, but 10x as many people are needed to justify construction of a high speed rail line.
Maybe it is just cheaper to have several car bombs a year, and do a mediocre job attacking al qaeda sympathizers.
LOL. "We" -- As if you and I had an actual say in it and voluntarily contributed our money.
It's a bargain: every illegal arrested is a job created.
Dear Cthulhu, I just noticed that he cited /Infowars/ and expected people to take it seriously. Infowars, founded by Alex Jones, who never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like.
Seriously? You are disputing the figure, because I cited Infowars? Ok, how about these guys? True to form, and with the customary wit and sophistication, the DailyKos are "killing the zombie lies about the war on poverty" — but even they cite and do not dispute the cost of the war: $22 trillion in today's (well, last year's) dollars.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I did some calculations and I'd like a critical review. My disagreement with the number is that they are including the price of the drones in the first year operation. I don't think that's a valid comparison to cost per apprehension. Thus, I would like to know the total operational cost, which is number of hours times cost per hour. The number of hours from the report is calculation as 22% of the goal of 16hrs/day for 365 days (or 1284.8 hours). The cost per hour calculated by OIG is $12,255. Thus, a total cost of about $15.7M. Divide that by 2,272 apprehensions for an actual cost of $6,930.12 per apprehension.
Yes, yes, anyone who disagrees with you is a moron, right.
One would have thought, Hans Christian Andersen took care of this kind of argument, but an opinion of a long-dead White dude does not matter to you, does it?
Well, this one does — and though it disputes a number of claims (referred to as "zombie lies" with the site's usual politeness), it disputes neither the $22 trillion figure nor the "triple the cost of real wars" part.
If you want to quibble, offer your own citations. You can start right here.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Works every time on assholes, who think their hate is uniquely justified, whereas everybody else needs to "stop being a hater".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You may find it hard to believe, but I don't count Kos as a reliable source either. They're just as interested in pushing a political POV as Infowars.
Given your inability to pick any sort of reliable politically-neutral source, I'm going to assume you're a fucktard and ignore you.
You have remarkably little self-awareness.
If both sides cite the same figure without disputing it, it may, actually, be correct...
The approach works for courts, it might work for you. Think about it...
There aren't any.
Love you too!
How will I even know? Will you be reminding me once in a while?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Instead of using a multi million dollar Predator drone to scan the border, perhaps they should be using something smaller and cheaper like a beefed up version of a Parrot drone instead.
Do we really need something that flies at 18,000 feet to patrol the border?
They should arm the drones and take pot-shots at the people trying to cross.
The "cost per illegal turned back" will drop to slightly above whatever the cost of a burst or two of machine gun fire. It will be a whole lot more effective and I bet word spreads fast not to try to come that way anymore.
The whole article is intellectually dishonest disingenuous bullshit. Their numbers are suspect, not properly sourced, and there's an obvious agenda "we shouldn't try to stop them" in it.
Maybe at the beginning "tech" sounded like a potential solution for border control. But a combination of immature technology and contractor graft made it way too expensive.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po...
What an incredibly one-sided story. First of all, the border patrol does not arrest and adjudicate the vast majority of border-crossers. After a simple computer look-up to see if they are criminals, they load them up on a bus and drop them off on the other side of the border. They only care about "arresting" law breakers, i.e., drug dealers. The CNN article did not report what some other new feeds did: "In 2013, the arrests by drone brought in $66,000 per hour of contraband seizures." They are concerned about and going after real threats to our country.
If the goal is to arrest people that might be unreasonable.
If the goal is to reduce the number of illegal border crossings, this is not a valid metric to look at.
So, for the 1,250,000 illegals a year, it would only cost 32,500,000,000$ per year so that nobody would cook my dinner at Denny's anymore?
A few clicks and you'll get there: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years
The widespread use of helicopters in law enforcement is largely a waste of money as well. Nearly all LE helicopters are flown, by policy, at altitudes and speeds appropriate for fixed wing assets that cost 1/8th as much to purchase and operate.
It's a boondoggle. When the budgets come down, it is always the "don't take away our chopper, man. They are so cool and intimidating to crooks" arguments. They seldom provide *any* additional utility in practice (planes orbit a scene at the same speeds and altitudes).
If you were to load the incidents that use a helicopter's specific abilities in those rare incidents that require them, the costs are astronomical. In LA, only 4 incidents from an entire fleet that costs several 10's of millions of dollars were recorded in 2013.
It makes drones look like a deal by comparison. Or not...
Better then 200,000 dollars or some random excitable number. Everything that involves US security is going to cost 100x more then it should.
What is it, like 50,000 bullets per enemy killed? Or 1 million dollars a day per marine sent to combat? I could be totally wrong but I know I'm not that far off. xD
Thanks god Obama h Christ has cut the war / MIC spending. I think an fray would be republicans->politicians
When considering the cost of finding and deporting illegal aliens, it must be compared against the cost of failing to find and deport them. Some aspects of illegal aliens are: drunken unlicensed illegal drivers killing pedestrians (no, licensing them does not make it OK), new outbreaks of measles, mumps, and tuberculosis, and the World Trade Center. Still think it's too expensive to eliminate illegal aliens?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The facts: The ACA puts a hard limit on profits the insurance companies may make by requiring them to spend 80% of premiums on medical care. If they fall under that line, they have to refund the difference to their customers.
In 2011, that refund totaled 1.1 billion dollars. In 2012, as insurers began to moderate their prices to align more closely with costs, 504 million was refunded. In 2011, they got even closer, and refunds due to excessive margins dropped to 332 million.
But this only reflects the overcharges made according to the new ACA rule. The estimate of what consumers saved due to insurance companies being hard limited is much higher - according to HHS, that amount exceeded 4 billion dollars in 2013 alone.
Refunds cite
So no, the ACA has not enabled insurance companies to gouge you via your insurance premiums. The truth is exactly the opposite.
Let's try to put some actual numbers on it. After some googling, the most promising and least-partisan looking numbers I can find are here, which imply (all figures in 2011 dollars):
Wars up to 1860: approximately $6.5 billion
Civil War: ~$80 billion
World War I: $334 billion
World War II: $4.1 trillion
Korea & Vietnam: $1.1 trillion
Iraq (1991): $0.8 trillion
Iraq, Afghanistan and Other, post-9/11 to 2010: $1.2 trillion.
It's been noted that these are lowball estimates, particularly in these times of expensive medical care and benefits available to veterans, which will vastly inflate the cost of those more recent wars. However, that's both a controversial assessment and hard to quantify accurately: the best attempt I've seen puts the total cost at "between $4 trillion and $6 trillion", which is quite a range.
So "$7 trillion total" isn't actually as unreasonable as you might instinctively think. It's in the right ballpark.
I wish he had spent more money in education. It is clear from your post that you lack it.
Critical review incoming:
You're thinking about this too much which implies a deep seated opinion regarding those deemed illegal or regarding the validity of this border program. You didn't specify an opinion so either one of those is plausible. Ask yourself: out of all of the things in the world I could have decided to number crunch, why illegal immigration and/or the border patrol? I can speculate the reasons why, but you aren't going to like them.
Came looking for a "Thanks Obama", leaving satisfied.
Who cares how much anything costs? This is the government after all and they have magic money. They can give FREE healthcare and FREE unemployment benefits, the have something called a central bank that gives them FREE MONEY, so who cares how much it costs.
This is the socialists wet dream, until the government spends their magic money on something they don't personally like, then it's like woooah, hold on how much does this cost?
How much does it cost? Fucking nothing that's how much. It's free money. Who cares? You care? Well fuck you, we have the guns and we only care about the uber riche. That's the reality of government.
Maybe someday the communist socialist ilks will realize that for every victory they have, the person in charge of the government gun that points at people, ain't them.
Liberty.