Operation Drawbridge

Texas has an over 1200 mile border with Mexico and technology is absolutely essential in protecting Texas and the nation from Mexican Cartel drug and human smuggling and trafficking operations.

This includes interoperable communications to support unified patrol and tactical operations, aviation and maritime assets with FLIR and night vision capability to increase detection and interdiction capabilities and the use of detection technology such as video, cameras and sensors to provide real time information on the exact location of a smuggling event.

There are insufficient personnel resources to properly cover the entire border region and the effective use of detection technologies is vital component in a multidimensional strategy.

The Texas Border Sheriffs demonstrated that you can provide live video coverage in remote areas along the border to support interdiction operations and when you do,  the Cartels soon figure it out and are forced to move their operations elsewhere.

This is good for the Texas landowners in those areas but the Cartels are highly adaptive and they quickly exploit other areas along the border.  The Department uses similar video technology to support Ranger Recon tactical operations on the Rio Grande River as it increases surveillance capability during operations.

However, the challenge has been to dramatically increase the use of detection technology  throughout the entire border region in a way that is affordable, flexible and fool proof.

Operation Draw Bridge provides us that capability using low cost commercially off the shelf technology that we have adapted to meet our needs and the needs of our close  partners which includes the Texas Border Sheriffs, Border Patrol and Texas land owners.

Essentially what we did is take wild life cameras with motion detection and low light capability and worked with a manufacturer to adapt it for our needs.  During the testing process Operation Draw Bridge resulted in over 300 arrests of IAs and drug smugglers with only 20 cameras.

An important part of this initiative is public, private partnerships.   Several Texas land owners have agreed to purchase and deploy these on their lands which will be incorporated into Operation Draw Bridge increasing our coverage.  These cameras are monitored 24 & 7 by the Texas Fusion Center.  Detection alerts are sent simultaneously to the Border Patrol, the Sheriff’s Office, the Fusion Center and the land owner.  At $300 per camera, they provide a high tech capability at a low tech cost.

Drawbridge Photos