The Department of Public Safety calls it high-tech, low cost and it?s making a difference along the Texas-Mexico border.
A new system of cameras are catching undocumented immigrants sneaking across private ranches and farms -- groups that would have otherwise gone undetected, according to local landowners.
?There are literally hundreds of trails out here that are being frequented and used by drug smugglers and human smugglers, ? said border rancher Michael Vickers. ?There?s a lot of desperate people coming in here from all over the world and frankly a lot of them are getting through.?
Unlike past cameras used along the Southwest border, these cameras do not provide a live video stream that must be constantly monitored. Instead, the cameras only snap pictures when something triggers a sensor and within seconds the image is emailed to command center in Austin.
Once the photograph is verified as illegal activity, it?s passed along to local and federal authorities monitoring the border.
?We?re providing the imagery so they can make the best choice on how to respond to criminal activity that we?re helping to detect at the state level, ? said Captain Aaron Grigsby with the Texas Rangers.
During a ten-month test phase, using just 20 cameras in South Texas, officials made more than 130 arrests.
"We can hide them virtually anywhere, said Hank Whitman, chief of the Texas Rangers. ?They are small, compact, but we move them consistently. There?s no sense trying to look for them because you?re not going to find them.?
The cameras cost roughly three hundred dollars each and the state plans to install 400 more along the 1200-mile border with Mexico within the next four months.
The Lives of Others review To Kill a Mockingbird review M review The Departed review Aliens review
No comments:
Post a Comment