Virtual border fence flawed
Border Patrol: $20 mil system needs replacing
Sean Holstege and Diana Marrero
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 28, 2008 12:00 AM

An array of sensors and cameras defending 28 miles of border near Sasabe does not work as well as it should, and much of the technology will be replaced by summer at taxpayer expense.

Five days after accepting and paying $20 million for the work, Homeland Security officials told lawmakers Wednesday that the virtual fence does not meet contract requirements for detecting border intrusions and endangers Border Patrol agents.

The officials declined to estimate a cost for replacing equipment or securing the border. advertisement




Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was praising the high-tech system Wednesday, saying it will be expanded to other rural parts of the border.

"We do what actually makes tactical sense," he said.

"We will expand the virtual fence. We are not mothballing (the project). It did work. . . . There are some things in it we want to improve, and there are some things that probably it turns out we don't really need. But I envision we will use this design in other parts of the border."

Other agency officials, testifying before the oversight panel of the House Homeland Security Committee, said plans to expand the system to the Yuma and El Paso areas will be pushed back three years, to 2011, because of technological deficiencies.

The Sasabe network, called Project 28, was intended as a cornerstone of the government's multibillion-dollar border strategy.

As hundreds of miles of physical barriers and thousands of Border Patrol agents are being added, technology, anchored by the virtual fence, was to fill the gaps.

"Project 28 was supposed to be an example of how we could use technology to secure the border. The lesson is we can't secure 28 miles of our border for $20 million," said committee member Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J. "After so many years of promises and tests and millions of dollars spent, we are no closer to a technological solution to securing the border. This is unacceptable. It's what's holding up comprehensive immigration reform."

Contractor Boeing Corp. never consulted border agents before engineering the system, which is not suited to the rugged Sonoran Desert. The project was eight months late.

A Boeing executive testified that the company spent more than double the value of the $20 million contract to set things right and is now refining the network. The Department of Homeland Security awarded Boeing a $64 million contract to improve the network in December, two months before the government accepted the Sasabe work.

Amy Kudwa, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said that the virtual fence is not in "full operation" and that the agency continues to test the system. Agency officials showed lawmakers shadowy footage taken last week in which Project 28 cameras tracked three large groups of immigrants crossing the border. The images were relayed to a command post in Tucson, 70 miles away.

"We have the beginnings of a system," Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar testified. He told the committee that Project 28 does track people crossing the border without the need to position a Border Patrol agent, but he called the new tool a "marginal, limited capability."

Congressional auditors and lawmakers on the Homeland Security Committee overseeing the work painted a very different picture, portraying Boeing's work as little more than a multimillion-dollar science experiment.

Reading from contract documents written by Boeing, Government Accountability Office auditor Richard Stana told lawmakers that the company was paid to test a concept and leave behind a capability.

"It doesn't work the way Border Patrol agents wanted it to," he said. "As far as a leave-behind capability, the fact that we are going to swap out nearly all the equipment tells us that wasn't met."

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