US approves virtual fence on border
The US government has approved a 28-mile (45-kilometer) virtual fence along the US-Mexico border in Arizona to catch people illegally entering the country. The Bush administration plans to use some of the technology in other parts of Arizona and in Texas.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is to announce the acceptance Friday.
Last year the government withheld some of the payment to contractor Boeing Co., because the technology the company used in the test project near Tucson, Arizona, did not work properly. Boeing also was late in delivering the final product. Because of this, the department received a $2 million (euro 1.4 million) credit from the company to go toward maintenance and logistical support of the system, according to Homeland Security officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made public.
The virtual fence is part of a national plan to secure the southwest border with physical barriers and technological detection capabilities intended to stop illegal immigrants on foot and drug and illegal immigrant smugglers in vehicles. As of February 8,295 miles (475 kilometers) of fencing had been built.
The system already is working, the officials said.
On February 13, an officer in a Tucson command center 70 miles (110 kilometers) from the border noticed a group of about 100 people gathered at the Mexico-Arizona border. The officer notified agents on the ground and in the air near the border. Border Patrol agents caught 38 of the 100 people who tried to cross illegally, and the rest went back into Mexico, the official said.
The 28-mile (45-kilometer) test project was never intended to be replicated across the border, the officials said. The plan was to learn from the first project and apply the lessons to future virtual fencing, the officials said.
The combination of radars, cameras and surveillance towers probably will be used in a section of the Arizona border where there is no other technology available, the officials said. There are also plans to use the technology along a portion of the Texas border. These projects will get under way at the earliest in about four months.
The 28-mile (45-kilometer) virtual fence includes 98-foot-tall (30-meter-tall) unmanned towers equipped with an array of sophisticated technology including radar, sensor devices and cameras capable of distinguishing people from cattle at a distance of about 10 miles.
The cameras are powerful enough to tell group sizes and whether people are carrying weapons or backpacks capable of carrying narcotics.
Software glitches last year kept the array from providing a common operating picture with global positioning information to Border Patrol command centers as well as to agents with laptop computers in their vehicles stationed in the area to intercept intruders.
The government paid Boeing $15 million (euro 10.2 million) of its initial $20 million (euro 13.6 million) contract before determining the shortcoming last summer. The department gave a conditional acceptance in December.
Lawmakers have been skeptical of the product Boeing delivered.
"This is not the end of the Project 28 story," Democratic Rep. Christopher Carney said in a statement Thursday. "We need to understand what went wrong with Project 28 to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated and taxpayer dollars are not squandered."
Carney chairs the management subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee.
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