Administration Resumes 'Virtual Fence' Construction

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 8, 2009; 1:08 PM

The Obama administration is resuming construction of a "virtual fence" on the U.S.-Mexico border, renewing plans to build a multi-billion dollar chain of tower-mounted sensors and other surveillance equipment over most of the 2,000-mile frontier over five years, Homeland Security Department officials said today.

Technology problems frustrated former president George W. Bush's efforts to deliver on predictions that a network of cameras, radar and communications gear could rapidly deliver "operational control" of the southern border, a projection that his aides made in 2006 as his administration tried to win conservative lawmakers' support for a temporary worker program and a path to legalization for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

Now, with President Obama vowing to make another push to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say they have learned the right lessons from the disappointing performance of the first, 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson and are ready to try again.

"This is the initiation of the no-kidding, real, SBInet system," said Mark Borkowski, executive director of DHS's Secure Border Initiative and its technology component, SBInet. "We understand this a lot better. We're a lot more sophisticated in our modeling of what control of the border is."


On Monday, U.S. officials began erecting 17 camera and radio towers Monday on a new, 23-mile stretch near Tucson, and expect this summer to add another 36 networked towers on a 30-mile span near Ajo, Ariz.

The systems will undergo testing by engineers and U.S. Border Patrol operators and, if all goes well, Borkowski said, the goal is to expand that 53-mile coverage to the full 320-mile-long Arizona border by late 2011 or early 2012, and the full border with Mexico by 2014 except for a 200-mile stretch near Marfa, Tex.

The program is expected to cost $6.7 billion over five years, he said, slightly less than the $7.6 billion the former Bush administration projected, largely because the Marfa segment has been delayed beyond the five-year forecast window, he said.

The initial SBInet concept was to use commercially available technology to speed up dispatching of officers to intercept illegal immigrants, drug smugglers or other violators. The plan called for linking a network of towers, radar, infra-red and visible light cameras and Border Patrol officers using vehicles retrofitted with laptops and satellite phones or handheld devices.

Operators would pan and zoom-in cameras, direct agents to intercept border-crossers and manage operations using a near-real-time, map-like projection of the frontier.

But flaws in the $20 million Project 28 pilot quickly mounted. Off-the-shelf equipment was rushed into operation without testing, and police dispatching software was not sufficiently robust. Satellite-based communications created delays that made it too hard for operators in a Tucson command center 65 miles away to lock cameras on targets. Radar systems were triggered by rain, cameras got foggy and had trouble resolving at half the planned 10-kilometer range.

The result has helped agents in the area make about 5,200 apprehensions since 2007, but Boeing ultimately refunded about $2 million, and the government spent $65 million to buy military-style battle-management software.

Now, Borkowski said, the government has spent a total of $600 million through Boeing on new radar, different cameras, sturdier towers, 400 unattended ground sensors and more thorough testing at facilities in Crystal City, Va., and Playas, Ariz.