The Coast Guard only reached halfway toward its goals for intercepting illegal foreign fishing in U.S. waters during 2023-2024, as immigration enforcement and other missions absorbed more resources, according to a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.

“Although the Coast Guard recognizes IUU (illegal, unreported, and unregulated) fishing as one of the world’s top maritime security threats, its low interdiction rates and limited enforcement hours show a significant gap between the severity of the threat and the level of commitment required to effectively address it,” according to the inspector general report issued June 6.

In 2023 and 2024, “the Coast Guard estimated that it spent $687 million of its appropriations combating IUU fishing. Based on these estimates, we calculated that the Coast Guard spent approximately $5.9 million per IUU fishing interdiction,” the Homeland Security analysts wrote.

The Coast Guard had set its goal for illegal fishing interdictions at 40 percent.

“However, we found the Coast Guard only interdicted 21 percent of foreign fishing vessels detected illegally fishing inside U.S. waters,” because the Coast Guard did not prioritize fishing violations compared with its other statutory missions – just about 4 percent of its mission hours, the report states.

The Coast Guard “missed opportunities to potentially interdict 79 percent of the foreign fishing vessels suspected of illegally fishing in U.S. waters and protect the ecosystem from illicit fishing practices that threaten the sustainability of the fishing industry,” the analysts concluded.

By far, the DHS analysts noted, “98 percent (114 of 116) of the interdictions occurred in Coast Guard District 8, the Gulf of America.”

Headquartered in New Orleans, the Coast Guard 8^th District covers Gulf of Mexico waters from the Florida Panhandle to the international maritime boundary between the U.S. and Mexico EEZs.

Of 546 IUU fishing vessel detections and 116 interdictions by Coast Guard personnel, District 8 accounted for 511 detections and 114 interdictions.

Waters off the south Texas coast are a notorious hotbed of illegal fishing by Mexican fishermen, using swift lancha outboard skiffs to venture into U.S. waters, typically to poach red snapper and related species that are more plentiful off Texas thanks to U.S. management, according to the Coast Guard and National Marine Fisheries Service.

The report offered two summary recommendations: 

–      That the Acting Commandant of the Coast Guard conduct an analysis to determine how best to use available resources in District 8 to increase its IUU fishing interdiction rate;

–       Develop and implement a measurable performance goal for IUU fishing enforcement on the high seas or within the EEZ of another nation.