Flying the illegal alien trails

12 June 2003 | JacelopeBreeder/Luis Martinez

[JackelopeBreeder]

Buenos nachos, y’all. I haven’t posted in the last week or so because I was afraid I might let a very big cat out of the bag prematurely. Glenn Spencer of American Border Patrol would have fed me to his dog for that one. ABP has been busy with the media in the last few days – Swiss public TV on Wednesday and CNN today. The video may not show up on TV for a couple of days, so here’s the sneak preview minus any media spin.

Most of you are already aware of the UAV developed by American Border Patrol here in Cochise County, Arizona. Border Hawk went from hazy concept to successful flight test to feeding live video to MSNBC in just three months. The Department of Homeland Security was somewhat chagrined and started making “serious” noises about using UAVs, though one of their spokespersons admitted publicly a couple of days ago that they still haven’t done squat about the idea. The reaction from the Mexican government and our own homegrown open-borders boohoos was less refined and gracious.

Border Hawk I is just the tip of the iceberg and was meant only as a proof of concept prototype. ABP now has Border Hawk II and Border Hawk III, larger and with greatly enhanced capabilities. Better video systems, infrared, autoguidance, you name it; sorry, still no Hellfire missiles. Still, the birds are just the visible part of a much larger system.

Allow me to introduce BIDS – Border Intrusion Detection System. Part of it is in the air – the UAVs; part of it is on the ground – the communications and control stations; and a very important part is under the ground – remote detection sensors.

The thing about UAVs is that they are far more efficient and effective if you know in advance where to send them. So, ABP developed its own remote sensor system. I won’t go into the technical specs, but they work extremely well. When deployed, they are essentially invisible and impossible to detect. We had problems finding and retrieving a couple during testing.

Let me give you a scenario which will become fact within a few weeks.

Imagine that my friend (and alter-ego) Luis Martinez slipped back into Mexico two weeks ago for his grandmother’s funeral. Today, he and a dozen or so other illegals managed to slip through the border fence about an hour ago. They have been walking in the bottom of a dry wash out in the scrub, totally out of sight of the Border Patrol at ground level.

What Luis and friends do not know is that at this moment they are walking past a buried ground sensor. The sensor is 20 yards to their left – off the trail entirely. Right now it is reporting back to the control station, giving its location and the number of people passing. The control station gives an audible alarm, displays the data, and posts it on a map on screen. A UAV operator steps outside, enters the sensor’s GPS coordinates in the auto guidance system, and launches the bird on its way. He then returns to his seat in the control station to monitor the UAV’s progress.

Meanwhile, the payload operator has called the Border Patrol to report the sensor hit and has been analyzing map data and previous video footage of the area in question. He and the UAV operator pick an appropriate search pattern and wait the last couple of minutes for the UAV to arrive at the sensor location.

A couple of minutes later, Luis and his friends hear faint engine noise off to their right; the noise seems to disappear to the south. Less than a minute later the noise is on top of them as an improbably small aircraft passes directly overhead and then starts circling them like a hawk at 200 feet. Ten minutes later they are talking to a trio of polite but firm Border Patrol agents and Border Hawk is on its way home for retrieval and refueling or re-routed to another sensor hit.

End of scenario. It could just as easily have been drug smugglers or a group of illegals lost and out of water. It also could have been at night with the infrared payload. BIDS works and works well.

Now imagine what will happen when this particular news item comes out on CNN.

Our government will be chagrined yet again – and pissed at being one-upped by ABP yet again.

The Mexican government will be enraged – this will really interfere with shipping excess population (and drugs) north, and will cut into the flow of yanqui dollars going south.

The open borders bozos will be shocked, horrified, and shrieking like banshees.

I plan to enjoy that last part.

[JackelopeBreeder]

I forgot to mention that the UAV video will be streaming live on the Internet as the deal goes down.

[JackelopeBreeder]

Ping!

[texgal]

Wow, what do we need to do to get you guys to work over here in Texas?

[Geezerette]

Awesome!!!! Gives us hope here in the Southwest!

g in AZ

[One_American]

It sounds good. ABP has made great progress. I just hope there will be enough Border Patrol people to back it up because I think they are going to be very busy.

[JackelopeBreeder]

That's the flip side. If the UAV video doesn't show them being rounded up, it will show that they got away and somebody will have some 'splaining to do...

[WorkingClassFilth]

You guys are unbelievably cool! Americans doing things for themselves and because it is the right thing to do - imagine that!

[LasVegasMac]

Now imagine what will happen when this particular news item comes out on CNN.

Our government will be chagrined yet again – and pissed at being one-upped by ABP yet again.

The Mexican government will be enraged – this will really interfere with shipping excess population (and drugs) north, and will cut into the flow of yanqui dollars going south.

The open borders bozos will be shocked, horrified, and shrieking like banshees.

I plan to enjoy that last part.

My enjoyment would be seeing the UAV firing 2.75" FAR's and just heard the critters back south, from whence they came.

Watching the reaction of CNN and the the Mexican government to that would be ---- priceless.

LVM

[Tancredo Fan]

I was able to watch the video being sent by ABP today.... very good. The fact that a border watchdog organization can get this sort of technology together and working so quickly is something else. Compare that to the Tom Ridge buffoon brigade and the fact that 9/11 was in 2001, and now it's 2003 and the idiots have completely ignored these sieve-like borders. Somebody needs to be removed from office... and you can guess at just who that might be. If you don't, just ask Helen Thomas.

[RLK]

Nice innovations in detection. Now, does anyone here seriously thing anything will be done about the invasion?

[JackelopeBreeder]

Maybe or maybe not. However, with the amount of embarassment ABP can generate, a lot of politicians and bureaucrats better start growing very thick skins.

[SandRat]

CHA-CHING! I can hear Aztlanians Screaming Now. It's so sweet a sound. </...not allowed

[junta]

Can you pick up mule deer or javelina with it as well?

[Travis McGee]

bttt

[American in Israel]

Now that is the American way! If you got a problem, make something to fix it I love it! I would also love to get some technical information on the ground sensor equipment for some friends in Hebron. It would be dang handy to know they are coming before they start cutting holes in the fence.

There are large open valleys between most Arab villages and Jewish ones. Everybody builds on the hilltops. Your technology could save many lives!

Better to head them off with a searchlight across the valley than have a shootout up close. I don't think the UAV would be necessary in a fixed defensive position, it might be darn cheap life insurance.

[JackelopeBreeder]

You could if you recalibrated. The sensors are currently calibrated to ignore anything except human.

[JackelopeBreeder]

The Israelis have a great sensor industry of their own and also pioneered the current generation of UAVs. The US Army's Hunter UAV was a joint US-Israeli project.

[HiJinx]

Yup. And if the sensors really are as accurate as my FRiend Jackelope Breeder claims them to be, you'll be able to sex the species and determine the Boone & Crockett score if it's a male...

[LNewman]

This is AWEsome, JB!

MORE Power to All Y'all!!!!

And did I mention I was in AZ ... and seriously tourist-footin' it in late May when I found myself at Meteor City? The day I was there, there was a guy yelling over the Interstate fence trying to get our attention. The proprietor of the "City" told us that the guy belonged to the (non-descript) tractor trailer on the exit ramp that had run out of diesel.

What's up with that? ;)

[junta]

Don't get me wrong I'm not a poacher, but my question was a roundabout way of seeing what level of technology you were using. If I'm right they could alter their footstep pattern and evade your system but then spend the rest of their lives in the desert slow footing when speed is important.