Virtual fence along Mexico border is canceled

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday canceled a project to build a technology-based “virtual fence” across the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that the effort  on which $1 billion has already been spent  was ineffective and too costly.

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, said she had decided to end the 5-year-old project, known as SBI-Net, because it “does not meet current standards for viability and cost effectiveness.” In a statement, Napolitano said border agents would instead use less-expensive technology that is already part of their surveillance equipment, tailoring it to the specific terrain where they will be scouting for people crossing the border illegally and drug traffickers.

Napolitano’s decision brought a long-expected close to a project carried out by the Boeing Corp. under a contract first signed in 2005 under President George W. Bush, which had been plagued by schedule delays and cost overruns. Originally estimated to cost more than $7 billion to cover the 2,000-mile length of the border, it was the subject of more than a dozen scathing reports by the Government Accountability Office.

In a pilot program in Arizona, it cost about $1 billion to build the system across 53 miles of the state’s border. Officials said the new approach, using mobile surveillance systems and unmanned drones already in the Border Patrol’s arsenal, would cost less than $750 million to cover the remaining 323 miles of Arizona’s border. Homeland security officials released documents Friday showing big increases in the Border Patrol  from 10,000 in 2004 to 20,500 today and a steep decline in the number of immigrants detained at the border.