New camera technology assists El Paso border agents in catching crossers

EL PASO, Texas — The U.S. Border Patrol's El Paso Sector is installing new autonomous cameras along the border that will help agents monitor highly trafficked areas.

The cameras are known as Autonomous Surveillance Towers (AST). Currently, the El Paso sector has 2 cameras installed in the Santa Teresa station, with plans of installing 13 more in other areas. 

“These towers are self-scanning, and they also have basically algorithms that pick up what are potential migrants or vehicles that are crossing around or near the border,” Agent Joel Freeland explained.

The cameras can scan a radius of about 3 miles and will alert agents to possible migrants near the border. An agent will review to determine if it is someone trying to cross and then call out other agents to investigate. 

This new camera adds to the other cameras that Border Patrol utilizes, but these cameras are different. They are higher quality and are not stationary. Agents can pick up the camera and move it to another area that might be more highly trafficked in just a day. Also, the camera is powered by solar panels and only needs an hour of sunlight to operate a whole day. 

Border Patrol will set these cameras up in areas that are hard to track and are remote, such as Lordsburg in southern New Mexico. Freeland says it will make an important difference.

“Knowing that information immediately versus one of our agents having to go check a sensor that’s anywhere from a hour to two hours away and then finding out when they get there that it was an animal or something else that activated,” Freeland said. 

Agents in Eagle Pass in Texas have utilized the same AST cameras previously and Freeland said the technology helped them discover migrant traffic they had never seen before. 

The other 13 AST cameras to be installed will be spread out between Lordsburg, Deming, Fort Hancock, and Ysleta.