U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) is raising concerns over a security problem that it said has plagued the southern border for months. An internal memo, obtained exclusively by NBC News on Monday, Oct. 14, said around 30% of surveillance cameras at the U.S-Mexico border are not working. The agency disclosed that 150 out of 500 security cameras are offline with outstanding repair requests.
Without the added surveillance, border agents reportedly lack a critical tool in preventing illegal crossings and other crimes.
“Basically, the reason these cameras are so important is because when we talk to the administration about what they do for immigrants, or illegal drugs coming across the border, if they can’t put a person at every spot they always turn to these cameras,” Julia Ainsley, NBC News’ Homeland Security Correspondent, said. “They said, look, Trump’s wall isn’t nearly as important as surveillance.”
The agency said that the cameras are used cover large areas instead of committing hundreds of agents and vehicles, but admitted there are many areas currently not being watched because of the outages.
U.S. Border Patrol agents blamed the problem on old equipment and repair wait times.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Border Patrol union in Laredo, Texas, said last week that it was continuing to receive “numerous officer safety and border security concerns” from agents about the cameras.
“We hope this issue is resolved soon, as the problem has been ongoing for quite some time!” The union’s president Hector Garza, wrote. “The American taxpayer has made significant investments in the technology along the border, and they expect that this technology is operational.”
Border officials also blamed bureaucracy for the problem in the memo, stating that the Federal Aviation Administration is responsible for camera maintenance.
The FAA claims it has had trouble meeting demand, although it did not specify what delayed the fixes to cameras. The memo claimed the FAA will send repair workers to the southern border to fix the cameras, but the timeline is unclear.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency spokesperson told NBC News that the department has installed around 300 new towers with more advanced technology.
“CBP continues to install new, more advanced technology that embrace artificial intelligence and machine learning to replace outdated systems, reducing the need to have agents working non-interdiction functions,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.
Even with the camera issues at the border, illegal crossings continue to fall, reaching their lowest point under the Biden administration in September 2024. Agents reportedly apprehended 54,000 migrants, 2,000 fewer than July.
