The U.S. Coast Guard has struggled in its drug interdiction efforts over the past decade, significantly missing its goals, primarily due to a shift in focus toward migrant interdiction. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), published on October 3, 2023, highlights that the Coast Guard failed to meet its drug interdiction objectives between 2015 and 2024, while also falling short in migrant interdiction in six of those years.
The report indicates that the Coast Guard redirected resources from drug interdiction to address a surge in maritime migration. This shift was largely a response to escalating numbers of migrants attempting to reach the U.S. through the Caribbean Sea. The Coast Guard faced operational challenges, including a decreasing number of available vessels and aircraft, delays in acquiring new equipment, and workforce shortages, which hampered both drug and migrant interdiction initiatives.
Operational Challenges and Resource Allocation
Between 2022 and 2024, the Coast Guard recorded its highest levels of maritime migration in three decades, with nearly 70,000 migrants attempting to enter the U.S. This contrasts sharply with the average of 8,200 migrants per fiscal year from 2015 to 2021. In response to the migration crisis, the Coast Guard deployed 80 cutters for Operation Vigilant Sentry, which is aimed at intercepting both drugs and migrants. Notably, 38 of these cutters were reassigned from other missions, emphasizing the reallocation of resources.
Despite the increased focus on migrant interdiction, the Coast Guard only achieved its performance targets for these efforts in 2016, 2017, 2022, and 2023. The report attributes this to a combination of newly established metrics that made targets easier to meet and the increased demands on the service’s resources.
From fiscal 2021 to 2023, the Coast Guard increased operational hours for aircraft and vessels dedicated to migrant missions by 66%, while reducing the operational hours for drug interdiction efforts by 62%. This shift resulted in a significant decrease in drug seizures, which fell from 218 in 2021 to 112 in 2023. The total amount of drugs seized also diminished, with 143,000 kilograms confiscated in 2021 compared to 110,000 kilograms in 2023.
Strategic Responses and Future Measures
The GAO report highlights that the Coast Guard has lowered its drug interdiction targets three times over the past decade in an attempt to make them more achievable. Despite these adjustments, the service still could not meet its goals. Chief among the operational issues were the declining availability of medium endurance cutters, which saw diminished operational readiness due to equipment failures.
Staffing challenges further complicated the situation. Although the Coast Guard met its recruiting goals in fiscal 2024, it failed to achieve its targets from 2019 to 2023, resulting in a shortfall of 2,600 service members by the end of 2024. The ongoing redirection of assets to manage the migrant surge exacerbated these staffing and operational challenges.
In light of these findings, the Coast Guard has begun developing new performance measures for drug interdiction, with six new metrics already in use as of July 2025. However, the service is still in the early stages of establishing new measures for migrant interdiction.
The GAO recommends that the commandant of the Coast Guard take steps to create new performance metrics for migrant interdiction efforts. Additionally, it calls on the Secretary of Homeland Security to ensure that the Operation Vigilant Sentry task force improves the sharing of lessons learned with other federal agencies.
As the Coast Guard continues to navigate these challenges, its dual focus on migrant and drug interdiction presents ongoing operational complexities that require strategic adjustments and effective resource management.
