Posted on 01/14/2011 10:53:30 AM PST by TSgt
The Department of Homeland Security today officially scrapped a Bush-era program designed to use radar technology to detect illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a DHS official and a congressional source.
The project, called "Virtual Fence," was rolled out under the Bush administration in 2006 with much fanfare about how technology could help secure the border. Illegal immigrants crossing the border would be detected by a radar and picked up by remote cameras, which were monitored by border patrol agents.
But numerous internal and Congressional reviews found consistent performance problems with the project's systems, which only spanned 53 miles of the vast U.S.-Mexico border.
The cameras often provided blurry images, the radar system performed poorly in bad weather, and it often displayed false detections that were unable to distinguish between humans, cars and animals.
There were also cost overruns and the primary contractor, Boeing, repeatedly missed deadlines, officials said.
"The SBInet program has been a grave and expensive disappointment since its inception," Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., ranking member of the House Homeland Security committee, said in a statement.
The system is estimated to cost about $1 billion. If the entire project had been accepted and rolled out, its cost would have exceeded $6 billion.
"We know that we cannot continue to put out millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer's money if we're not confident that it's really not going to work, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who ordered a review of the program upon taking office, said in October.
DHS officials say the program will not be a total loss and that Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents will continue to use some of the systems that have been paid for.
A fence like THAT would be a great JOBS program! We need to get started.....like what was done in the Depression with roads, etc.....
Hispanics vote in astonishingly small numbers IIRC.
Actually, it does work now. Ajo I station is up and running and the Border Patrol Agents like its performance.
The SBInet towers have an enhanced capability over the much smaller, and less capable, MSS trucks. The multi-spectral detection capabilities are significant and light-years ahead of the older, lass capable (and limited IR-only) MSS tucks.
My son works Ajo as a Border Patrol Agent and he and his brother Agents like working together with the towers. They think it a mistake to cancel now that the technology is fixed and operational. They see this as a calculated ploy on the part of Big Sis Nappy-Pants and The Messiah to cook the illegal immigration books. You know, less detections mean less coordinated interceptions and reduced illegal captures. When the numbers are down this means Big Sis Nappy-Pants and The Messiah are doing good. . .right? That their illegal immigration coddling-Mexico mmigration policy works because the number of apps is way down.
The decision to cancel has nothing to do with capability, it has everything to do with politics.
This video is a battle that took place on the border last November. We need all the security we can get to keep this from penetrating our borders. (Caution on the below video - it’s grusome).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX2gtblTeqI&feature=related
Hulka, thank you for your comments.
I believe that some of these measures do have a positive effect. I am by no means convinced that they are doing the job.
The border agents may like working with the virtual fence tools. Frankly, we’re being over-run anyway.
I still believe we will continue to be over-run by foreign nationals until we get serious about stopping every person, and making them pay heavily on the second and third apprehensions.
We don’t have enough agents. We don’t get tough enough on repeat offenders. We don’t do much about folks already here. Our schools are full of the children of illegal immigrants.
So you know what, I’m in favor of an edifice being built down there on the border. Make the thing out of concrete and 50 feet high. Sink it into the ground by 20 feet too. And if anyone messes with it, open fire on them. Nothing less is going to do the trick.
Then I think you arm our people down there and make it plain, the invasion is over. And then you start rounding people up and deporting them en mass.
I don’t like having to take measures like this, but there’s no way in hell any nation should put up with what is taking place on our border.
The U. N. supports it, because it serves it’s purposes to see nations destabilized. Why are we playing that game?
Right now we have people on both sides of the isle catering to the illegals and their blood relatives. Our policies are drafted to placate them. That is destabilization.
It has to stop. And no, I’m not convinced the virtual border tools are the answer. Call me stubborn, an A. H. or whatever, but I’m not buying into it. The only way it would work is if we had fully staffed that area, unlike all the areas that aren’t fully staffed.
Good post D1.
Obama doesn't want to secure the border, but then neither did GWB. I don't object to trying out new ideas, but (even assuming that he and Chertoff sincerely thought it was a good idea) GWB could have deployed a lot more national guard troops on the border while they were evaluating the so-called "virtual fence."
Now. . .if we can get the AUSA (Assistant US Attny’s) to take drug smuggling cases. The AUSA’s have an unofficial “threshold” of 500-lbs before they will take a case for prosecution.
The illegal, breaking into our country and smuggling 50-lbs of drugs as a way to pay his coyote, he gets a pass and is back in mexico in 24-hrs, and yet, an American citizen gets years in jail for a baggie.
Madness.
i will blame Bush for this fence. How many years ago did Congress aprove this? They F’d around and never built the damn thing and look at us now.
I would like to see this fence built in a circle and all the democrats placed inside it.
Rinos didn't want to secure the border, because that was their bargaining chip for "comprehensive immigration reform" (i. e. amnesty).
Yup -- with a minefield on both sides of the wall about 500 meters deep. You'll only have a few unfortunate collateral losses before EVERYBODY gets the word and all attempts cease. I love the way liberals claim that building that 30 foot wall will only cause somebody to build a ladder 31 feet tall. Think of the Berlin Wall. At the height of it's operation when all those countermeasures were in full force, it made international news when even ONE person made it through.
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