Better late than never: Work Under Way on ‘Virtual Fence’

From The New York Times:

After three years of delays and false starts, construction began this week on a “virtual fence” aimed at stopping illegal immigration and smuggling along the border with Mexico.

The first phase of the $6.7 billion project — a network of towers rigged with cameras, sensors and communications equipment — will cover about 23 miles south of Tucson, in the busiest area for illegal crossing.

Within five years, officials said Friday, the fence is expected to extend along the entire 2,000-mile border except for some 200 miles in the area of Big Bend National Park in Texas, a stretch that is to be addressed later.

Planning for the virtual fence began in 2003 as part of the Secure Border Initiative, which also included the deployment of thousands of new border agents and the construction of hundreds of miles of physical walls.

The technology piece of the plan, however, was bogged down by Congressional inquiries into hundreds of millions of dollars in spending on the development of a prototype and conflicts over environmental assessments.

Mark Borkowski, the Customs and Border Protection official heading the project, said the problems had now been resolved sufficiently to begin building a block of the fence that could be in operation by year’s end.