Sat, Jan 29, 2005
Contract Runs Out On Highly Effective Border Guardian
The US Border Patrol, now part of the Bureau of Customs And
Border Protection with the US Department of Homeland Security, has
come to rely on a little unmanned plane called the RQ-5 Hunter. At
the end of the month, however, it plans to park the drones, or
"unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)" as they are now called. The
contract runs out on January 30, and nobody seems to be in any rush
to renew it.
The Border Patrol people who use the UAVs like them -- partly
because they have helped catch hundreds of illegal aliens and a ton
of contraband, mostly marijuana. "It would be a good thing if we
could continue on with it. It's definitely done a lot of good
things," Border Patrol spokeswoman Andrea Zortman told the East
Valley (Arizona) Tribune. Congress appropriated money to keep the
drones flying through the end of the federal fiscal year, which
expires on September 30. Nevertheless, higher-ups want to cogitate
a while before actually spending the money -- so the Border
Patrol's eyes on the border now have about as much elevation as a
man can get when he sits up straight on horseback.
The Arizona paper
points out that this is "the height of the season for illegal
border crossings." Recent events in Texas and Boston prove that we
cannot assume that all the people who cross the border are harmless
gardeners and job seekers, even though that's what many of them
are.
The RQ-5 Hunter's actual tally, as reported by USA Today, is 287
illegal immigrants and 1,900 pounds of marijuana. The Hunter was
developed by TRW with help from UAV pioneer Israeli Aircraft
Industries, and was adapted for the Border Patrol by Northrop
Grumman, which currently makes and updates Hunters for the Army.
Before the RQ-5 went online in October 2004, a fleet of another
Israeli UAV, the Hermes, was used. It accounted for 965 illegal
immigrants and 843 pounds of marijuana, during a test which lasted
slightly over three months.
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