One of the most innovative programs in preventing illegal immigration and protecting the borders of the US is the Texas Virtual Border Watch program. Texas Governor Rick Perry enacted the program in conjunction with the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition and Blue Servo ?, a privately held company. The program is designed to allow the public to participate in monitoring crime along the Texas-Mexico border.
Under the program, anyone with Internet access can become a “virtual deputy” by creating an account and logging on to the Blue Servo network. Once you have created an account, you can monitor the Texas-Mexico border 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The virtual deputies are able to see what’s going on at the border thanks to cameras that stream live from the border continuously.
When virtual deputies spot suspicious activity, they are able to report their findings to local country sheriffs via email. Emails coming in to the county sheriff’s are anonymous. Local authorities have responsibility for checking out all emails sent in, conducting investigations and taking appropriate actions.
The Texas Virtual Border Watch is like a community watch program on steroids. Since it’s inception in 2008, the program has had mixed reviews. As of April, 2010, just 26 arrests had been made as a result of information obtained through the program. At this point in time, just 29 of the projected 200 cameras had been installed. In order to defray costs, the plan for funding the program called for installing the cameras over a period of time.
Mixed Reviews
Those who criticize the program say that it is too expensive, considering a cost of $2 million just to get the program up and running. Proponents of the program say that the real benefit is in its ability for the cameras to deter criminal activity, which is difficult to measure.
In the first year, one major drug bust was completed because of the program, netting 540 pounds of marijuana and the arrest of a suspected drug smuggler. However, this appears to be the only significant arrest to come from the program.
Of course, any program like the Virtual Border Watch faces the inherent problem of timeliness. By the time law enforcement officers can retrieve emails sent by the public, and act on them, the suspicious activity is likely long over.
The program has also suffered from a waning interest by the public. When the site was initially launched, the website got millions of hits. It appeared that people from all over the US, and even abroad, were calling themselves virtual deputies. But, over time, interest in monitoring the site has fallen off.
There has not, however, been serious talk of discontinuing the program. When Blue Servo began working with the Texas government, they had plans to offset costs by selling advertising on the website. The site has continued to have benefits beyond those of the virtual border program, since it allows other groups, such as neighborhoods, to create their own virtual watch programs at no cost.
Phyllis T. Zerkle particularly likes to write about issues surrounding homeland security and the various courses studied when earning a homeland security degree online.
