Donald Trump does not give a Central promise of his election campaign 2016: to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. Although he has avoided the topic during his recent bilateral meeting with his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, he continues to build by the end of this year, about 720 km long border fortification.

Since the U.S. Congress persistently refuses, the mega-project of the President to Finance, have been so far, only about 338 kilometers built, approximately eleven percent of the more than 3,000-Kilometer-long border between the two countries.

Away from the well-known Trump rhetoric on this subject since the beginning of July, a notice for the attention of: The President explained that he had hired the technology company Anduril Industries, to build a virtual border wall, the human movements could track by artificial intelligence.

Inexpensive and efficient: The virtual border

plans for The U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to install to 2022, about 200 Autonomous operating towers. These are supposed to be solar and are provided with Sensors operated, the sampling of the border on of human-induced movements. The artificial intelligence of the system, called the Lattice, should be able to recognize whether a vehicle, an animal or a Person trying to cross the border. In the latter case, it alerted the U.S. customs and border protection. For two years, were tested in a pilot project, four such watchtowers.

Anduril Industries confirmed the signing of a five-year contract with the CBP. According to the "Washington Post" is the cost of a virtual wall of hundreds of millions of dollars, so only a fraction of the more than US $ 20 billion estimated cost of the physical border wall. How to make a lot of sense, then a wall of steel and concrete?

symbolic: The real of the wall

Adam Isacson, an expert on monitoring systems of the human rights organisation WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America), highlights the symbolic value of a physical border wall, particularly for those members of the Republican party, the immigration-critical. In urban, densely populated areas, a physical barrier would be useful, "but not in the rural areas and in the deserts," says Isacson in an interview with DW. "You would stop migrants, just a few minutes as you just have to climb up one side and on the other down again."

Paul Angelo from the US-American Think-Tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) shares this scepticism about the DW: "The history teaches us that walls of irregular Migration do not prevent. Technology has for decades been an Instrument of border cooperation between the USA and Mexico. It is much more sensible to continue in this way with the Mexican government to work together to build as a permeable wall."

as Illegal border crossings have decreased in the past 15 years, says Adam Isacson, of from about 250,000 to 30,000 people per month. Today, most of the migrant children and families seeking asylum: "These people just want to enter the US-American ground, give himself up for arrest, and then the administrative process of the asylum application to be taken, and in this case, a physical wall, makes no sense."

to close borders: Democrats support the Smart Wall

The advantages of the so-called Smart Wall seem to be on Hand, however, the WOLA-the expert emphasises an important disadvantage: The low presence of U.S. officials in remote areas of the border region. Regardless of whether or not surveillance cameras to detect illegal border-crossing, whether an arrest is difficult, if not border guards were in the vicinity.

And if Donald Trump will not be elected in November 2020 as the US President again? Then the government of Joe Biden is the project lead, believes Isacson. Many Democrats would like the Smart Wall is an Alternative to concrete or steel wall. "You might even tear off parts of the physical wall of Trump, while you install more virtual systems." Isacson does not exclude, however, that the Democrats could change the contract partner, as the founder of Anduril Industries, Palmer Luckey, a supporter is Trumps.

For the Latin America experts Paul Angelo these Considerations go to the core of the problem: "With the wall of the Trump Administration applies the resources of the government and focuses on a Symptom, not the root of the problem. Migrants flee from their home countries because of bloody violence, and economic under-development and widespread corruption. The U.S. government should use the resources to improve the miserable living conditions in Central America."

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*The post "Trump wants to build a "smart wall"" of Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.

Deutsche Welle

Date Of Update: 15 July 2020, 09:27