New Technology, Cameras Roll Along Mexico Border
 Associated Press
Tucson, AZ - When Elizabeth Isaman leaves the El Mirador Ranch on the Mexican border, she can see a tall metal tower packed with cameras, radars and sensors about a quarter-mile away.
It’s one of nine towers creating a so-called virtual fence stretching along a 28-mile segment of the Arizona-Mexico border, dubbed Project 28, straddling the Sasabe port of entry — the federal government’s latest effort to deter illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.
“It’s like Big Brother is watching you. I don’t like that part of it,” said Isaman, whose son Roy runs the El Mirador. The ranch, three miles west of Sasabe, has been in the family since 1929.
Sasabe is about 80 miles southwest of Tucson.
“I think it’ll help the Border Patrol round up people that they catch,” Roy Isaman said. “But I would rather see boots on the ground and have them confront drug smugglers that are coming across, and bandits. I would like a real fence here, to cut cross-border traffic and real cows,” he said.
With the exception of a few miles of X-shaped, welded steel-rail vehicle barriers, the only fencing on this section of the border — if it’s still standing — consists of rusty, twisted five-strand barbed wire.
“I think everybody’s pretty much scratching their heads about what the heck the government’s up to,” Isaman said, referring to uncertainty whether Congress will pass heavily criticized proposed comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
“I’d rather see people here with guns, so if there are any problems with smugglers with AK-47s, at least they’d have a little backup.” |
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Technology News | June 2007 
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