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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday that she will freeze funds for expanding the virtual fence that originally was supposed to monitor most of the 2,000-mile southern U.S. border by 2011 but now covers only a portion of Arizona's boundary with Mexico.The virtual fence is a network of cameras, ground sensors and radars designed to let a small number of dispatchers watch the border on a computer monitor, zoom in with cameras to see people crossing, and decide whether to send Border Patrol agents to the scene.A string of technical glitches and delays has put the virtual fence in jeopardy. Two months ago, Napolitano ordered a reassessment of the project that has thus far cost the government $672 million."Not only do we have an obligation to secure our borders, we have a responsibility to do so in the most cost effective way possible," Napolitano said in a statement, which didn't specify the amount of funding that would be frozen. The funds will be frozen until the project's reassessment is completed.
The high-tech phase, known as SBInet, carries a price tag upon completion of about USD 8 billion. But it still has not gotten out of the testing phase in the two Arizona sites, which cover just 50 miles of border. Although the testing has taken longer than planned, costing about $20 million so far, Peters said a much-improved high-tech system would evolve.Borkowski said nearly all of the planned physical fencing was in place along about 620 miles of terrain where we think we need it. He said an additional 30 miles still must be fenced in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The cost for the physical fence was USD 3.4 billion.
SBInet wasn't what Congress had in mind. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 required the construction of 700 miles of new border fence along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. "The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide for at least two layers of reinforced fencing, the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras and sensors," the act said.It was to be modeled on the success of the barriers in the San Diego sector of the U.S. border. The operative word was "secure." Instead of this two-layer secure fence, what has been built consists of flimsy pedestrian fencing or vehicle fencing consisting of posts people can slither through.The two-tier fence in San Diego runs 14 miles along the border with Tijuana. The first layer is a high steel fence, with an inner, high, anti-climb fence with a no-man's land in between.It has been amazingly effective. According to a 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service, illegal alien apprehensions in the San Diego sector dropped from 202,000 in 1992 to 9,000 in 2004.Cameras and sensors played a part, but the emphasis was on physical barriers and roads that were patrolled by real live border guards, not robots. Then in 2006 the Democrats took back Congress and, in 2008, the White House. Former border state Gov. Napolitano reportedly once said: "You show me a 50-foot fence, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border."
