Free Talk Live

Military drones are already used to survey the border between the US and Mexico, but starting last week, another piece of military technology has made its way back home. The latest surveillance tool to be picked up by the Department of Homeland Security is the Kestrel wide-area camera system, which can capture miles of terrain in a single high-resolution image. The system was originally used in Afghanistan, where it watched perimeters and took pictures of insurgents at bomb emplacements.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate hearing Tuesday that unmanned aerial drones will soon fly through Texas skies!

"Big Sis" declared that over the past 15 months, federal law enforcement initiatives have made the border more secure than in any other time in history, the SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS reports in Wednesday editions.

The new "predator bees" have the capability to fly at altitudes used by commercial aircraft, and are designed to enhance intelligence capabilities of federal, state and local law enforcement.

In the wake of a dramatic increase in deaths at the hands of U.S border patrol agents, the Department of Homeland Security has agreed to launch a long-awaited investigation into the agency’s use of force. Since 2010, border agents have killed at least 18 people, including Valeria "Munique" Tachiquin, slain by a Border Patrol agent on September 28 in broad daylight several miles north of California’s border with Mexico. Tachiquin was a U.S. citizen and mother of five children. Her family is now brings a wrongful death lawsuit against the Border Patrol.

In the span of just three years, we have seen drone surveillance become openly operational on American soil.

In 2007, Texas reporters first filmed a predator drone test being conducted by the local police department in tandem with Homeland Security. And in 2009, it was revealed that an operation was underway to use predator drones inland over major cities, far from “border control” functions. This year it has been announced that not only will drone operations fly over the Mexican border, but the United States and Canada are partnering to cover 900 miles of the northern border as well.

Build it, and they will trample you. The US committed to building the "border fence" between the US and Mexico, and due to a treaty, they actually built portions of the fence north of the border, cutting off Americans, who now deal with the "Mexican scum" south of the border more frequently. Foreseeable consequences abound.

It's the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence, government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn't so dangerous after all.

On average, each mile of border fence costs US taxpayers about $4 million to build and will cost another $6.5 billion over the next 20 years to repair and maintain.

Are we getting our money's worth? Is the border fence an effective deterrent? To find out, I asked two young women—both only about 5'5"—to see if they could climb the wall.

GUANAJUATO, Mexico — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Mexico to stay the course in an admittedly "messy" war against drug cartels, saying Monday that the Obama administration will help with new controls on the flow of American guns across the border.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich signed a pledge on Thursday to build a double fence along the entirety of the southern border of the United States.