On the Border: The 'Virtual Fence' Isn't Working

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Each is equipped with radar, cameras, and Wi-Fi transmitters assembled by aerospace and defense giant Boeing (BA) to beam images and information to a command center in Tucson and to laptops installed in 50 patrol cars.

But Project 28 is failing to do the job even on the small pilot patch it is meant to fortify. The effort has been "more challenging than we anticipated," concedes Deborah D. Bosick, senior communications manager for the Boeing unit that is stitching together the government's Secure Border Initiative. Embarrassing equipment and software glitches have plagued Project 28, troubles Bosick attributes to the difficulty of quickly "integrating complex, off-the-shelf technology." Congressional investigators have warned that if the system fails a series of tests now under way, they may urge pulling the plug. Homeland security officials, meanwhile, want to stick with Boeing and are spending an additional $64 million to come up with another, more reliable version.

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The contractor believed its expertise assembling complicated surveillance systems and software for the armed forces would help it build the better barrier of the future. But Boeing lacked much awareness of how the Border Patrol operates and, with only an initial $20 million fixed contract, Boeing "did it on the cheap," says Alison Rosso, staff director of a Democratic-controlled House homeland security subcommittee. That conclusion is echoed by investigators from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Homeland Security Dept.'s Inspector General. Boeing responds that it is spending more than $40 million of its own money on the prototype and that it's trying to do a lot on a tight deadline.

Among Project 28's problems: Wind and rain affect the cameras' image quality. Radar has been unable to distinguish between mesquite bushes and clusters of people or animals. In early tests, the laptops in the patrol cars couldn't take the jostling of rough terrain. And Boeing has had trouble bundling infrared images, radar scans, and ground sensor readings so that they reach the Border Patrol in time for agents to pursue targets. "It blows the mind, the issues they've had," says Rosso. Boeing's Bosick says the glitches have been "ironed out."

If Project 28 does, in the end, produce technology that can be deployed along the whole border, some specialists estimate that the Border Patrol would need an extra 100,000 agents to go after all the migrants spotted by enhanced technology. Even then, undocumented migrants would find golden doors, say experts like Wayne A. Cornelius, who teaches the political economy of immigration at the University of California at San Diego. Sealing the border would simply displace illegal traffic to the Gulf and Pacific coasts, he says. Already, smugglers' small boats are transporting migrants to California from the Baja peninsula. "Building an effective Fortress America," says Cornelius, "is a project that would require many years and huge expenditures, with dubious prospects of success."

Some advocates still urge a focus on real walls (BusinessWeek, 02/07/08), whose effectiveness, they say, has been amply demonstrated near heavily populated areas. One of the more celebrated physical fences is a 14-mile-long barrier the federal government built along the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, a decade ago at a cost of $9 million per mile. The 10-foot-high double fence, made of steel mesh and welded metal panels—surplus airplane landing mats from the Vietnam War—dramatically cut the number of illegal crossings from Tijuana, the Border Patrol says. Still, many migrants find a way across, sometimes through tunnels. As Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, has said: "Show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder." Fences also force migrants to cross at more remote, dangerous locales in the mountains and deserts.