Thread: Group: ‘Where’s the beef?’ in border enforcement

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HEREFORD — The local civilian anti-illegal immigration group American Border Patrol has expanded its operations to a 100-acre ranch here that fronts both Mexico and the San Pedro River. The group says it will use the property as a base to continue demonstrating how inexpensive technology can help secure the border.

During a Friday night fund-raising barbecue for Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, ABP founder Glenn Spencer showed off the ranch’s six-camera surveillance system to a crowd of approximately 150 people.

As Spencer displayed a split screen projection of the views from four of the cameras, Mike King, ABP’s technical director, alerted him to a view into Mexico that showed a vehicle rumbling along a dirt road.

“That’s probably a load vehicle headed for the San Pedro River,” Spencer told the audience.

He estimated there were as many as 50 illegal border-crossers within a two-mile radius of the ranch at that moment.

Unlike the U.S. Border Patrol, which maintains camera towers about 1/2 mile from the international boundary, the ABP has surveillance cameras positioned right next to the border, Spencer said.

Furthermore, he added, while Border Patrol cameras communicate via costly microwave systems, ABP uses a relatively inexpensive “canopy” wireless Ethernet connection.

“It’s similar to what you would have at your home,” Spencer explained, “where the range might be 1,000 feet. Here, we have the same capability, but it goes out 12 miles.”

The cameras will be monitored at a command center RV at the ranch, where volunteers control their movements using a hand-held, video-game-like controller.

Spencer hopes ABP members will eventually use the Internet to man the cameras from anywhere in the country.

Meanwhile, the American Border Patrol also will continue monitoring the border via cameras mounted on inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles flown at altitudes of 500 feet.

“The government’s UAVs cost $7 million,” Spencer said. “We built ours for $50,000.”

The ABP has dubbed its program “Operation BEEF,” which stands for Border Enforcement Evaluation First.

“We’re calling it operation BEEF because the government is saying they’re going to beef up the border,” Spencer explained. “So we’re asking, ‘Where’s the beef?’ ”

“We document what goes on at the border,” he continued. “Our plan is to place on the Web each month a complete report of what the border situation was for each Border Patrol station from San Diego to El Paso.”

Tancredo, a Republican U.S. representative from Colorado who has made tough border enforcement the focal point of his campaign, praised Spencer for his work.

“He has done more than perhaps anyone else to show what is possible, and to show that what we have in this country is worth protecting,” Tancredo told the audience.

“How many other countries in the world can you think of that have people who are willing to do this kind of thing?”

Spencer founded American Border Patrol after moving to Arizona from California in August 2002.

HERALD/REVIEW reporter Jonathan Clark can be reached at 515-4693 or by e-mail at jonathan.clark@bisbeereview.net.

I don't know where the government gets their figures for what it costs to do things. I swear they shoot for the most expensive and most complicated ways to do the simplest of things.

You are absolutely ritght and this just proves it could be done more quickly for a lot less and be more effective.

But then the Government isn't committed to enforcing our laws and securing our borders. These people are.