30-foot steel fence paired with high-tech surveillance network
For decades, the U.S.-Mexico border was often marked by little more than barbed wire, according to the Associated Press. Now, after a “massive infusion of cash” from Congress, the Trump administration is rapidly building what it calls a “smart wall” — 30-foot-tall steel fencing integrated with sensors, cameras and towers that allow Border Patrol to surveil the territory.
The project is advancing even as border crossings have fallen to their lowest levels in decades, the AP reported. Rather than a simple physical barrier, the smart wall concept embeds electronic surveillance into the structure itself, creating a system that can detect and track movement across the border in real time.
Ricky Garza, border policy counsel at the Southern Border Communities Coalition, an advocacy group, said “the wall in all its forms is harmful to communities.”