Text for Magazine Spread
Beyond the Wall
Infrared serveillance cams. Seismic Field Sensors. Real-time data maps. Welcome to the new US Border Patrol.
By Michael Mechanic
Photographs by Matthew Welch
Above: Would-be migrants wait to make a break near Imperial Beach, California.
Overleaf: looking south toward the the border from the eastern San Diego sector.
They call it the line. El bordo. The edge. And in the early 1980’s, the frontier that separates the United States and Mexico was pur chaos-a place where the understaffed Border Patrol fought a thankless, sometimes violent, and mostly futile battle against legions of illegal immigrants lookinf for a better life. The most lawless stretch: 15 miles of border near San Diego where two out of every three attempts to cross illegally succeeded. As evening approached, thousands would gather on the Mexican side, preparing for the nightly scramble.
Today everthing has changed. The Border Patrol’s crackdown-launched in 1994 and dubbed Operation Gatekeeper-has become a showcase for the latest in digital enforcement. The war on terror has given Gatekeeper an even higher profile in Washington. In the past two years, the Bush administration has spent $100 million on sophisticated surveillance gear and a high-powered information network to keep undocumented immigrants out.
Gatekeeper is working, at least in the San Diego sector, which runs 66 miles east from Imperial Beach. The number of would-be immigrants trying to cross here has plummeted, with arrests falling 81 percent since the operation began. But this all-out effort has not kept aliens out of the United States. Like squeezing a balloon, enforcement has slowed the traffic in the most heavily traveled areas, only to see new bulges appear along the 2,000-mile border. Migrants have taken to remote mountain and desert routes, where hundreds have died. And, most telling of all, the total number of undocumented immigrants coming from the south has actually increased over the past decade, hitting an estimated 711,000 a year as of the last census.
Is it feasible to staunch the tide of illegal immigration? The Border Patrol is extending its high tech net further into the Southwestern desert. But as long as the vast economic disparity between Mexico and the US remains, putting a stop to illegal crossings may be as difficult as maintaining a line in the sand.
Michael Mechanic (Michael.mechanic@eastbayexpress.com) wrote about radio frequency ID tags in Wired 10.05
Wiring the Border
Since 1994, the US Border Patrol has spent millions on tech surveillance gear and data analysis tools to guard the 66-mile San Diego sector of the US-Mexico border.