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Drones to Patrol U.S.-Mexico Border in Homeland Security Plan

by Amar Toor on June 26, 2010 at 05:02 PM

Predator Drone
How seriously does the Department of Homeland Security take illegal immigration? So seriously, apparently, that it's ready to turn the Texas border into Tora Bora.

According to the AP, the government will begin deploying unmanned surveillance drones to the U.S.-Mexico border in a revamped attempt to stem the flow of illegal aliens entering the country. So far, Homeland Security has obtained permission to fly the drones over the Gulf Coast region and along the Texan border, and Customs and Border Protection will reportedly keep one drone stationed at Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. The Department also announced that it's working with Office of National Drug Control Policy on something called "Project Roadrunner," a program that would use a license plate recognition system designed to identify drug traffickers.

The drones and Project Roadrunner are both part of a larger Homeland Security initiative aimed at enhancing communication and coordination across governmental agencies on local, state and federal levels. Creating more synergy across law enforcement bureaus is certainly critical to any effort to tackle an issue as complex as illegal immigration, but we're still a little uneasy about the idea of seeing ominous robot-planes hovering over any country not named Afghanistan.

We're not saying we should open our doors to anyone and everyone, but there's got to be a way to strengthen border security without turning vast chunks of our country into a glorified police state. Maybe some Texans will feel safer knowing that there's an eye in the sky keeping tabs on their state, but the very notion only leaves us deeply, deeply concerned. [From: Huffington Post/AP]

Tags: border, BorderPatrol, borders, DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity, drone, government, HomelandSecurity, IllegalImmigration, project roadrunner, ProjectRoadrunner, surveillance, texas, top, UnmannedAerialVehicle, UnmannedAircraft

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