On June 6th, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a final report regarding its investigation into the U.S. Coast Guard’s enforcement efforts with respect to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, Coast Guard Missed Opportunities to Interdict Foreign Fishing Vessels Suspected of Illegally Fishing in U.S. Waters, OIG-25-25 (June 6, 2025). The OIG’s report makes clear that illegal poaching of red snapper in U.S. waters by Mexican lanchas continues to be prevalent and that the federal government’s current efforts to counter this IUU fishing are incredibly expensive and have failed to disincentivize incursions.
The fundamental finding of the OIG’s investigation was that the Coast Guard had failed to meet its IUU fishing interdiction goals in fiscal years 2023 and 2024. Over the course of those two fiscal years, the Coast Guard detected 546 separate incidents of foreign vessels fishing within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the United States but had only interdicted roughly one-fifth of those detections (116). The OIG also noted that the number of detections of IUU fishing increased between fiscal year 2023 and 2024, from 265 to 281, as did the number of interdictions, from 55 to 61.
Virtually all of the interdictions of foreign vessels fishing in U.S. waters came from a single area: “98 percent (114 of 116) of the interdictions occurred in Coast Guard District 8, the Gulf of America.” Reviewing the amount spent by the Coast Guard to combat IUU fishing, the OIG report explained “we calculated that the Coast Guard spent approximately $5.9 million per IUU fishing interdiction.” As noted in the report, the Coast Guard has argued that “it was difficult to improve performance with current resource levels due to the large volume of illegal fishing vessels in the Gulf of America.”
Reporting from other federal government agencies indicates that territorial incursions have continued unabated since fiscal year 2023. On May 23rd, the Coast Guard issued a press release reporting that four Mexican fishermen had been detained in federal waters off the coast of southern Texas with roughly 200 pounds of red snapper on board. The press release explained:
“A lancha is a fishing boat used by Mexican fishermen that is approximately 20-30 feet long, with a slender profile, one outboard motor, and capable of traveling at speeds exceeding 30 mph. Lanchas are frequently used to illegally fish in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) near the U.S.-Mexico border in the Gulf of America. The illegal harvest and trade of red snapper and other fish species is often a revenue stream for criminal organizations. Apart from their use for illegal seafood harvesting in U.S. waters, lanchas may also be used to move illicit drugs and aliens into the United States.”
Because these activities have not diminished, the federal government has recently changed policy and is now arresting and prosecuting Mexican commercial fishermen. As the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) explained last week, “[i]n past instances, authorities would seize the catch and destroy the vessel but release violators back to Mexico.” With the policy change, however, “[a]ny commercial fisherman now apprehended in U.S. waters caught violating the Lacey Act faces potential fines and imprisonment.” The DOJ announced guilty pleas from four Mexican fishermen to knowingly transporting approximately 315 kilograms (693 pounds) of illegally taken red snapper. According to the DOJ, the fishermen left Playa Bagdad in the evening of April 16th on a 25-foot open fishing vessel without running lights, traveling to U.S. waters, where they deployed four miles of longline containing around 1,200 hooks. When apprehended, the fishermen had 693 pounds of red snapper and four sharks in their possession. The red snapper had an estimated retail value of over $9,000. The DOJ explained, “[t]he men knew the catch would be seized if they were caught in U.S. waters but chose to take the risk due to the limited supply of red snapper in Mexican waters.” The DOJ further observed that the captain of the vessel “had been arrested on 28 prior occasions for illegal fishing.”
The harm caused by Mexican lanchas to the U.S. red snapper resource was the subject of a recent hearing, Finding Nemo’s Future: Conflicts Over Ocean Resources, held by the Coast Guard Subcommittee of the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. At the hearing, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) described the harm these IUU fishing practices were causing to Texas commercial fishermen. As explained at the hearing, IUU fishing undermines the catch restrictions for red snapper imposed on American fishermen. Moreover, the health of the red snapper stock has been used as a consideration to justify restrictions on the overall effort of the Gulf commercial shrimp industry as a means for limiting bycatch. In consequence, depletion of the red snapper stock in U.S. waters not only takes these fish away from American fishermen but places greater pressure on commercial fisheries targeting other species to limit their activities.
Beyond the adverse impacts to American commercial fishermen, Mexican lanchas also kill protected marine species, including sea turtles and marine mammals. These activities significantly undermine the fishery management programs imposed on other U.S. commercial fishing industries and threaten further restrictions on the activities of American fishermen. In practical effect, U.S. commercial fishermen are required to minimize their interactions with protected species so that they can be harmed by foreign fishermen illegally working U.S. waters.
Despite expending an enormous amount of resources, federal government responses to the Mexican lanchas have done little to curb the practice and, at times, have unintentionally harmed American businesses while having no impact on IUU fishing. For example, effective February 7, 2022, NOAA Fisheries, using authority granted to the agency under the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act (16 U.S.C. § 1826a), prohibited all Mexican fishing vessels operating in the Gulf of America from entering U.S. ports and denied them access to U.S. port services. NOAA Fisheries negatively certified Mexico for IUU fishing in both 2021 and 2023 “for its continued failure to combat unauthorized fishing activities by small hulled vessels (called lanchas) in U.S. waters, for which it was first identified in 2019.” While this step has stopped lawfully operating Mexican fishing vessels from using services at ports along the southern Texas coast such as the Port of Brownsville, the prohibition made no difference to the lancha-based fishermen illegally operating in U.S. waters, as these small vessels do not attempt to use U.S. ports.
Conversely, no effort has been undertaken to utilize authority to prohibit imports in response to IUU fishing, as set forth at 16 U.S.C. § 1826a(b)(3). Under this statutory provision, in response to negative certification determinations from NOAA Fisheries, the President “shall direct the Secretary of the Treasury to prohibit the importation into the United States of fish and fish products and sport fishing equipment (as that term is defined in section 4162 of title 26) from that nation.” Such a response is particularly appropriate where, as here, a significant portion of the illegally harvested fish is ultimately exported to the U.S. market.
Imports of Mexican snapper into the United States (Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States codes 0302.89.5058 and 0303.89.0067) have grown substantially over the past decade. In the four years between 2012 and 2015, the United States imported an average of 8.1 million pounds of snapper from Mexico valued at $22.8 million. In the most recent four-year period spanning from 2021 through 2024, the average annual volume of Mexican-origin snapper imports increased by nearly 38 percent to 11.1 million pounds, while the average annual value of these imports more than doubled to $49.3 million.
As shown in the chart below, as incidents of illegal fishing by Mexican lanchas in U.S. waters have increased, the total value of snapper imported into the United States from Mexico has grown, despite the “limited supply of red snapper in Mexican waters.”
These figures indicate that while the harvesting of reef fish by American commercial fishermen has been subject to severe restrictions, American red snapper are being taken by foreign fishermen and sold into this market without restriction.
These figures also demonstrate that access to the U.S. market is important to Mexican seafood exporters. In the past, leveraging this market access has successfully incentivized changes in behavior in Mexico’s seafood sector, as the U.S. Department of State’s April 2021 determination to suspend the Mexican shrimp industry’s Section 609 certification – resulting in Mexican wild-caught shrimp being prohibited from importation into the United States – led to substantial improvements in the industry’s protection of sea turtles.
Nevertheless, NOAA Fisheries has, to date, not recommended that the import prohibition authority of 16 U.S.C. § 1826a(b)(3) be used to respond to illegal fishing in U.S. waters and there is no indication that the President has ever considered prohibiting imports in response to a negative certification – or multiple, repetitive negative certifications – of a foreign nation for IUU fishing. In contrast, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s actions under similar provisions of the Pelly Amendment of the Fishermen’s Protective Act (22 U.S.C. § 1978(a)) have resulted in prior Administrations publicly considering whether import prohibitions on “any products from the offending country” should be imposed.
“Right now, when Mexican lanchas operate in American waters it means American red snapper are taken away from American fishermen and American taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try and stop them. At the same time, the fish landed illegally in U.S. waters is being exported back to the United States,” said John Williams, Executive Director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. “We are allowing foreign fishermen to operate in U.S. waters and sell into the U.S. market free of the regulatory controls imposed on American fishermen. This must change.”
Read the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Coast Guard Missed Opportunities to Interdict Foreign Fishing Vessels Suspected of Illegally Fishing in U.S. Waters, OIG-25-25 (June 6, 2025) here: https://www.oig.dhs.gov/reports/2025/coast-guard-missed-opportunities-interdict-foreign-fishing-vessels-suspected-illegally-fishing-us-waters/oig-25-25-jun25