Border securityThe real cost of CBP’s failed SBInet is $1.389 billion

By Robert Lee Maril

Published 7 March 2016

Since its approval by Congress in 2006, the exact cost to taxpayers of the Secure Border Initiative network (SBInet) has remained difficult to substantiate. The real cost to date of the failed SBInet program , a cost which excludes the SBInet impact upon both federal agents, border residents, and border crossers, far exceeds the commonly used estimate of $1 billion. The quality, utility, and efficiency of CBP’s failed SBInet program should be judged, like any other federal program, by its real cost to the public. According to government data, that cost to date is $1.389 billion.

Since its approval by Congress in 2006, the exact cost to taxpayers of the Secure Border Initiative network (SBInet) has remained difficult to substantiate. Journalists and researchers have found the exact amount of public funds obligated to SBInet, frequently referred to as the virtual fence, to be buried in different government documents. The result is an essential nontransparency of budgetary facts by which precisely to judge the quality, utility, and efficiency of SBInet from a cost perspective.

Originally approved by Congress in 2006, the border wall and SBInet were touted by both parties as the solution to controlling the flow of undocumented workers to this country from Mexico along with illegal drugs and possible international terrorists. SBInet, in conjunction with the concrete and bollard border wall, various additional layers of fencing, vehicular obstacles, was actively promoted as a complementary and invisible barrier finally providing operational control to our southern border. SBInet was further touted by CBP, DHS, the primary contractor Boeing, and the majority of Congress as a giant step forward for Customs and Border Protection agents who hitherto had been forced to depended on unreliable and outdated ground sensors that could not discern between border crossers and grazing livestock (Robert Lee Maril, Patrolling Chaos: The U.S. Border Patrol in Deep South Texas [Texas Tech University, 2006]).

In 2011, however, then Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano cancelled SBInet, citing a number of crucial concerns uncovered by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and other watchdog agencies (U.S. Government Accountability Office, Secure Border Initiative: DHS Needs to Strengthen Management and Oversight of Its Prime Contractor, GAO-11-6, October 2010, and U.S. Government Accountability Office, Secure Border Initiative: DHS Needs to Reconsider Its Proposed Investment in Key Technology Program, GAO-10-340, May 2010).