Flying the illegal alien trails

12 June 2003 | JacelopeBreeder/Luis Martinez

[JackelopeBreeder]

Buenos nachos, y’all. I haven’t posted in the last week or so because I was afraid I might let a very big cat out of the bag prematurely. Glenn Spencer of American Border Patrol would have fed me to his dog for that one. ABP has been busy with the media in the last few days – Swiss public TV on Wednesday and CNN today. The video may not show up on TV for a couple of days, so here’s the sneak preview minus any media spin.

Most of you are already aware of the UAV developed by American Border Patrol here in Cochise County, Arizona. Border Hawk went from hazy concept to successful flight test to feeding live video to MSNBC in just three months. The Department of Homeland Security was somewhat chagrined and started making “serious” noises about using UAVs, though one of their spokespersons admitted publicly a couple of days ago that they still haven’t done squat about the idea. The reaction from the Mexican government and our own homegrown open-borders boohoos was less refined and gracious.

Border Hawk I is just the tip of the iceberg and was meant only as a proof of concept prototype. ABP now has Border Hawk II and Border Hawk III, larger and with greatly enhanced capabilities. Better video systems, infrared, autoguidance, you name it; sorry, still no Hellfire missiles. Still, the birds are just the visible part of a much larger system.

Allow me to introduce BIDS – Border Intrusion Detection System. Part of it is in the air – the UAVs; part of it is on the ground – the communications and control stations; and a very important part is under the ground – remote detection sensors.

The thing about UAVs is that they are far more efficient and effective if you know in advance where to send them. So, ABP developed its own remote sensor system. I won’t go into the technical specs, but they work extremely well. When deployed, they are essentially invisible and impossible to detect. We had problems finding and retrieving a couple during testing.

Let me give you a scenario which will become fact within a few weeks.

Imagine that my friend (and alter-ego) Luis Martinez slipped back into Mexico two weeks ago for his grandmother’s funeral. Today, he and a dozen or so other illegals managed to slip through the border fence about an hour ago. They have been walking in the bottom of a dry wash out in the scrub, totally out of sight of the Border Patrol at ground level.

What Luis and friends do not know is that at this moment they are walking past a buried ground sensor. The sensor is 20 yards to their left – off the trail entirely. Right now it is reporting back to the control station, giving its location and the number of people passing. The control station gives an audible alarm, displays the data, and posts it on a map on screen. A UAV operator steps outside, enters the sensor’s GPS coordinates in the auto guidance system, and launches the bird on its way. He then returns to his seat in the control station to monitor the UAV’s progress.

Meanwhile, the payload operator has called the Border Patrol to report the sensor hit and has been analyzing map data and previous video footage of the area in question. He and the UAV operator pick an appropriate search pattern and wait the last couple of minutes for the UAV to arrive at the sensor location.

A couple of minutes later, Luis and his friends hear faint engine noise off to their right; the noise seems to disappear to the south. Less than a minute later the noise is on top of them as an improbably small aircraft passes directly overhead and then starts circling them like a hawk at 200 feet. Ten minutes later they are talking to a trio of polite but firm Border Patrol agents and Border Hawk is on its way home for retrieval and refueling or re-routed to another sensor hit.

End of scenario. It could just as easily have been drug smugglers or a group of illegals lost and out of water. It also could have been at night with the infrared payload. BIDS works and works well.

Now imagine what will happen when this particular news item comes out on CNN.

Our government will be chagrined yet again – and pissed at being one-upped by ABP yet again.

The Mexican government will be enraged – this will really interfere with shipping excess population (and drugs) north, and will cut into the flow of yanqui dollars going south.

The open borders bozos will be shocked, horrified, and shrieking like banshees.

I plan to enjoy that last part.

[WRhine]

Most of you are already aware of the UAV developed by American Border Patrol here in Cochise County, Arizona. Border Hawk went from hazy concept to successful flight test to feeding live video to MSNBC in just three months. The Department of Homeland Security was somewhat chagrined and started making “serious” noises about using UAVs, though one of their spokespersons admitted publicly a couple of days ago that they still haven’t done squat about the idea.

I suspected HLS was putting on a dog and pony show for the masses when they said that they were going to put modified UAVs in service in the border areas. Didn't make sense to me. We already know that HLS is under orders to do as little as possible in apprehending illegals.

Glenn Spencer is a highly resourceful man a mission. At a minimum, he is going to embarrass the Feds and expose their complicity in the illegal immigration crisis.

[JackelopeBreeder]

It's a mite more sophisticated than that. Some of the programming logic is still proprietary so I'm not really free to discuss it.

[American in Israel]

Yes, but I am not talking about putting this in the hands of the army but the hands of the people under attack. The army does not let its hi tech stuff get in the hands of the man in the street.

It also has political winds that sometimes shift to where they might want to ignore crossings in some areas. The army guys in the field are trying to do a good job, but the ones above often do not supply what is needed to accomplish that.

If a homeowner with an exposed backyard could be warned when someone was crossing no-mans land toward his house 100 yards away and just turned on the lights out back, that in most cases would stop an attack dead in its tracks.

Exciting stuff.

[JackelopeBreeder]

Sounds like here.

The average house near the border is surrounded by 8-foot chainlink fence topped with barbed wire or concertina. Entire yard covered by floodlights and a pack of large dogs.

Even the kids carry guns.

[c-b 1]

I have a question. If the UAV is circling 200 feet above the ground observing a mule train, wouldn't it be possible for the flank guards to shoot it down with their rifles?
It might be a lucky shot, but I would think for the safety of the UAV a higher altitude would be better.

[DeepDish]

One thing I really like about your system is that there
is no contact with the illegal aliens. This not only helps
slow down the flood but chops off false charges of
brutality and harassment by people who are not "law en-
forcement proffessionals". Not to mention the risk of
stumbling across well armed drug smugglers.

[DeepDish]

Hey, when you decide to upgrade your uav, why not
consider mounting small lights on the bottom side of the
aircraft. Slave these lights to a photo sensor on the top
of the aircraft. Aircraft are easy to see because they are
much darker than the sky. Photo sensor can be programmed
for bright sun to cloudy skies.

[JackelopeBreeder]

The smugglers generally use snub versions of the AKs or MP-5s or similar. Full size rifles are a rarity.

The video is of high enough quality at the control station to spot these and get out of range quickly. The streaming video and still captures on the web site have been degraded by compression. The real stuff is almost broadcast quality.

FAA regs also limit our birds to flying under 500 feet and not exceeding certain size, weight, and performance parameters. If we bust those we'd have all sorts of bureaucrats climbing into our jockey shorts.

[oceanperch]

I want to get pinged to these type of threads but I get so frustrated when I do check them out.

What frustrates me is it seems with all the hard work US citizens are doing to protect their homes along these border crossing it just keeps coming.

I wish everyone the best and hope someday there will be a solution.

Do you think it will ever get as bad as S.Africa?

[Carry_Okie]

Nothing quite like incremental development.

You guys done great!

[Pro-Bush]

Thanks for the update!

[oceanperch]

OK now that I read the article.
This sounds like a great tool.
Hopefully the Govt. won't see fit to cut the budget back so bad for ABP that they fiscally cannot continue.

Good Luck and keep up the fight.

[JackelopeBreeder]

The goverbment doesn't give us a cent. We're a private non-profit organization.

[wjcsux]

Good job and thanks for the update.

[hedgetrimmer]

If you live in Arizona you have other problems to take care of right away!

URGENT ACTION SOUGHT FROM CITIZENS OF ARIZONA
DATE: 8:30 p.m. TUE 10jun03

---

Three of Arizona's Members of Congress are set to introduce the most radical immigration bill ever seen in U.S. history.

Sen. McCain, Rep. Flake and Rep. Kolbe have created a bill -- expected to be introduced any day -- that would come closer to eliminating our U.S. borders than anything ever introduced while setting up a two or three-step process to give an amnesty to almost all 10 million or so illegal aliens now in the country.

http://www.americanpatrol.com/ARIZONA/OpenBdrActionAlert030611.html

[junta]

I think B&C would have a problem with sensors never mind P&Y, but leave it to the "hunting industry" they will no doubt be for sale in Cabelas given enough time.

[junta]

And you would have to kill me if you did I suppose?

[Ten Megaton Solution]

I see...

...legislation coming to limit the installation of ground detectors. I see the whackos demanding an Environmental Impact Statement for the installation of sensors on all national lands.

Certainly permission will not be granted to monitory national parks...so the invaders will concentrate their crossing even more heavily on these regions.

The Mexican government might shoot down UAV's near the border, and claim they were violating their "airspace".

How are the UAV's insured? A private organisation certainly doesn't have the funds to loft replacements indefinitely.

Good job showing up the feds for the incompetent boobs they are. Don't expect them to appreciate your efforts. Good luck.

Oh, one last thing. The first UAV that is shot down that manages to start a brush fire will signal the death of the civiallian UAV fleet.

[oceanperch]

I apoligize. My lack of keeping up with the threads. I was thinking about the border patrol that is employed by Uncle Sam.

Again Sorry I do not know what I am talking about.