Houston Chronicle
WASHINGTON — Sections of Texas' border
with Mexico eventually could be secured by the same kind of high-tech
"virtual fence" that's been deployed in Arizona, key legislators said
Friday after touring the state-of-the-art surveillance network.
The comments by two
subcommittee chairmen with the House Homeland Security Committee —
Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, and Christopher Carney, D-Pa.—
followed an inspection tour Friday of the $20.6 million virtual fence
near Sasabe, Ariz.
The project links high-tech
surveillance towers, cameras, radar, ground sensors and unmanned aerial
drones along a 28-mile section of the 1,947-mile international border.
"In Texas, there is an outcry and a great deal of conflict over
installing physical barriers along the border," said Jackson Lee,
chairman of the panel's subcommittee on transportation security and
infrastructure protection. "What I have seen here today can be a very
effective 21st century tool to secure our borders."
Carney, the chairman of the panel's oversight subcommittee, called
the virtual fence "a tremendous concept" that's ready for eventual
deployment elsewhere along the border "once we make sure the bugs are
ironed out."
Substitute for physical wall
Carney, who toured the area
with Jackson Lee and five other lawmakers, said the virtual fence was
best suited for sparsely inhabited stretches along the border. "If we
can ever get the technology to match the dedication of the Border
Patrol personnel here, we'll have an impenetrable border," he said.
The Homeland Security Department certified the effectiveness of the
blend of technologies by the Boeing Co. in February after a series of
setbacks and over the objections of some members of the Democratic-led
committee.
Investigators from Congress' Government Accountability Office had
concluded that radar intercepts of people or vehicles crossing the
border were too slow to appear on Border Patrol agents' monitors. The
inspectors also found that cameras were unable to accurately detect
targets beyond 3.1 miles.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, another member of the House
committee, said that securing the border would require a variety of
"strategically placed physical and virtual barriers in addition to
electronic surveillance.
"No single type of barrier will provide appropriate border security," he added.
McCaul worked in his congressional district on Friday and did not make the trip to Arizona.
Jackson Lee said the lawmakers' inspection tour turned her from a
skeptic into a believer that the blend of high-tech surveillance and
targeted deployment of Border Patrol agents could intercept illegal
immigrants and drug traffickers.
Flaws in the system have been slashed from 53 to just four, she said.
"I've changed my assessment because the technology did not work — and now it does," she said.
Initiative upgrades security
The virtual fence is part of a
broader $7.8 billion Secure Border Initiative designed to upgrade
security along 6,000 miles of American borders with Mexico and Canada
by 2011.
Russ Knocke, the Homeland Security Department's spokesman, said the
Bush administration was pressing ahead with high-tech surveillance
projects along another 83 miles of the Arizona border as well as
completing construction of 670 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fences
by the end of the year.
The 28-mile virtual fence has helped Border Patrol agents carry out
roughly 3,400 apprehensions in that sector this year, he said.
stewart.powell@chron.com
