4 ways to address the failures we found along the US border’s “virtual wall”
The US has spent billions on surveillance towers, but hundreds of people have died near them. Here’s how to strengthen federal oversight.
TL;DR
- Hundreds of people have died near US border surveillance towers due to systemic flaws in the 'virtual wall'.
- The investigation found cases of individuals dying undetected near towers equipped with AI, with bodies remaining undiscovered for weeks or months.
- Systemic failures include broken towers, ineffective detection algorithms, and agents failing to respond to alerts.
- The US is set to spend $1 billion to triple the size of the virtual wall by 2034.
- Four key recommendations are proposed: conduct a comprehensive audit of deaths near the virtual wall, fix the agency's tracking of migrant deaths, track apprehensions resulting from surveillance technology, and investigate deaths as potential surveillance failures.
- Current systems for tracking migrant deaths are described as 'beyond broken' with a lack of national data collection and inconsistent internal agency protocols.
- There is a lack of reliable data on how often surveillance technology leads to apprehensions, despite previous recommendations for tracking.
- Investigating deaths near surveillance infrastructure could reveal flaws in the technology and highlight whether agents responded appropriately to alerts.
- A lack of systematic checks means migrant deaths are not routinely treated as potential failures of the virtual wall, and crucial surveillance footage may be deleted.