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If the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) gets its way, Congress will grant it more than $107 billion to run its enforcement regime during the 2025 fiscal year. Buried in the lengthy budget request<\/a> is $101 million to upgrade and maintain the network of surveillance towers scattered throughout the borderlands, first noted by The Intercept<\/em><\/a>. According to its own official publications<\/a>, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) hopes to fully integrate these systems through AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Politicians from both parties have long hailed<\/a> CBP\u2019s vast system, called the Integrated Surveillance Towers, as a sort of virtual wall that allows agents to better patrol the border. Although the surveillance towers comprise a small fraction of DHS\u2019s gargantuan budget, funding for the system has been steadily growing for decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Per The Intercept<\/em>, DHS expects the system to reach \u201cfull operational capacity\u201d by 2034, at which point there will be more than 1,000 manned and unmanned towers along both of the US\u2019s land borders. There\u2019s still quite a ways to go. As of last week, there were an estimated 429 surveillance towers in the US-Mexico borderlands, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The long-term goal is to create a \u201cmore autonomous\u201d Border Patrol through artificial intelligence<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In official publications, the agency has described<\/a> its expanded surveillance network as a means through which it will \u201cbring badges back to the border.\u201d The long-term goal is to create a \u201cmore autonomous\u201d Border Patrol through artificial intelligence. CBP publications note that AI can be used to \u201cidentify relevant patterns in interactions with immigrant populations,\u201d bolster surveillance operations, and \u201cpredict adversary movements.\u201d (It\u2019s not clear who the \u201cadversary\u201d is intended to be.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Last September, Defense Daily<\/em> reported that DHS plans on acquiring 277 new towers<\/a> that will surveil 53 different Border Patrol areas of operation, and to upgrade 191 existing surveillance towers. Three companies will supply the towers: Advanced Technology Systems, General Dynamics, and Elbit America, a subsidiary of the Israel-based Elbit Systems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The $101 million DHS is asking for to fund the Integrated Surveillance Towers system in 2025 will largely go toward maintenance and repairs. The request notes that 10 of the existing Remote Video Surveillance System towers need to be upgraded, while 15 Integrated Fixed Towers need to have their obsolete radar systems replaced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n DHS has been working on the surveillance towers in fits and starts since 2005. Its initial attempt, billion-dollar Secure Border Initiative Network \u2014 SBInet for short \u2014 was such a failure it was scrapped in 2011<\/a>. Customs and Border Protection awarded Elbit a $145 million contract in 2014 to build a new tower system, which is far more effective from a technological standpoint but has nonetheless failed to reduce border crossings. As we reported in 2022<\/a>, however, the system has had one concrete result: increased surveillance along the US-Mexico border has pushed migrants onto more remote, dangerous routes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n