U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has canceled the controversial project to build a virtual wall to secure the U.S. border with Mexico, the El Universal newspaper reported.After almost five years, the virtual fence project, which had already consumed more than one billion dollars, was not meeting the objectives according to internal reports of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of Government Accountability Office.
Napolitano added that DHS will follow a new route to secure the southern border with Mexico. Some elements of the original draft of the virtual fence, which was born during the Bush administration, will be combined with other measures that have proven effective to substantially reduce the passage of illegal immigrants and drug traffickers.
The project was known as SBInet (Secure Border Initiative), a high-tech global strategy of border surveillance developed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Boeing Company was to finish the project in 2011, and planned to establish thousands of surveillance towers equipped with sophisticated electronic security systems along certain stretches of the border in Arizona.
Unlike its competitors, Boeing did not offer the widespread use of aerial or ground vehicles, which are considered the most effective surveillance systems along the border.
According to figures from the DHS, 38 mobile surveillance units, more than 130 planes and helicopters, and five teams currently operate from California to Texas.
