Bush's border plan: technology-focused

This is the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security's border security initiative, a program that Bush called "the most technologically advanced ... in American history." It aims to help border-patrol agents monitor the border more efficiently though a suite of tools, from ground sensors to unmanned aerial vehicles to seamless communications.

For the most part, even critics aren't against the technology. Mr. Shachtman notes that the deployment of an unmanned aerial vehicle to the border did help agents track illegal border-crossers, increasing their effectiveness. But he adds that in one typical instance, three or four agents had to round up a group of 80 immigrants. "What would have been more helpful," he says, was six or seven more agents.

It is a common refrain. "[Technology] will identify the number of people coming over, but it won't apprehend them," says Stephen Eichler, executive director of the Minuteman Project, a private organization that opposes illegal immigration and patrols the border with volunteers.

Moreover, border activists have become wary of the promises of technology. Federal officials have long turned to technology in hopes of boosting a chronically overworked border patrol - often, however, with poor results.

• Ground sensors have had a tendency to go off for cattle crossings as much as immigrant crossings, wasting agents' time as they follow false leads.

• The unmanned aerial vehicle sent to the border eventually crashed.

• Control centers along the border are not integrated with one another, meaning that they can't communicate effectively.

• The predecessor of the Secure Border Initiative was so poorly managed and so behind schedule that the Department of Homeland Security simply scrapped it, according to a February Government Accountability Office report.

Secretary Chertoff insists this time will be different. The entire program will be built by one contractor "so that, for example, we won't have the problem of sensors that are not fully integrated with the operators."

But the administration also notes that this is a multifaceted problem that goes beyond border security. Neither technology nor boots on the ground will solve the problem if other elements aren't in place, too, such as better enforcement of employment laws among businesses, expanded detention centers, and so on.

Many experts agree. Bush "laid out pretty clearly these intertwined needs," says Deborah Meyers of the Migration Policy Institute. "Border control alone is not going to achieve what we want it to achieve."

To others, however, getting the border-control component right is crucial to the success of the entire enterprise, and that will take a clear assessment of what agents need most. Says Ms. Meyers: "Technology is important, but it's only one component."

Page: 1 | 2