EL PASO — After the media reported the failure of Governor Rick Perry’s Virtual Border program last week, Executive Director of the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition (TBSC), Donald Reay, claims that the report contained the wrong information and incorrectly portrayed the program in a negative light.

Last year, Governor Rick Perry gave $2 million to the Coalition (TBSC) for implementation of the Virtual Border project, a network of cameras along the Texas-Mexico border.  The cameras, 17 of which have been installed to date, are connected to a website for monitoring by private citizens. Original indications showed program goals that Reay says were inflated.

“The report numbers that the article gave that said it was a failure were wrong because, in the grant system, there are target numbers that are presented after the grant is awarded,” Reay said. “The Criminal Justice Division (CJD) handled this case in the governor’s office and, when we made our first six-month report, we noticed that the numbers were not attainable. I had no idea where the projected number that were put in there came from. It was not possible to reach those numbers.”
Upon seeing the unreasonable goals, Reay took action, he said.

“We were told to put in an amendment with more realistic numbers, and we did. It went to the CJD division, and the amendment was approved,” Reay said. When the end of the year report came out, it still had the original numbers on it. Knowing that it was not going to look favorable, they started looking at this in Austin and said they had a glitch between the Texas A&M entity and the CJD.”

Reay contended that this glitch was the root of the problem.

“They didn’t pick up on the right numbers and that created the wrong picture. So, they corrected the glitch, but the governor presented those old numbers to the writer of the [El Paso Times] article,” Reay said. “So, the problem was corrected, but unfortunately it was corrected late. She decided, and I say decided because it wasn’t true, that she wouldn’t accept that as what had happened and that we must have been doing this as a subterfuge.”

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, who represents District 19 in El Paso, also believes that the new report was simply a smokescreen to cover up the program’s failure.
“When Rick Perry simply changes the goal to match abysmal performance, that should bother every Texan,” Shapleigh said. “By that standard, what would he say about education? If students don’t meet SAT expectations, do we simply lower the expectation by setting a new goal?”

Reay maintains that the mistake was an honest one.

“The report numbers that the article gave that said it was a failure were wrong because, in the grant system, there are target numbers that are presented after the grant is awarded,” Reay said. “I can tell you, that [cover-up] is not what happened. I have been in the law enforcement business for 40 years, and I live by my reputation of integrity, and I can tell you that is not what went down.”

Shapleigh believes that the program should not have been launched in the first place.

“I don’t believe that a state related project on border watch could be effective at all. States have no role in immigration policy,” Shapleigh said. “The U.S. Constitution makes very clear that immigration is a federal issue. Borders should be handled by federal agencies, not state agencies. We cannot have 50 different immigration policies, one for each of the 50 states.”

Still, Reay says that the cost of the state funded program in small compared to federal programs and equally effective.

“I would invite you to compare the cost of the virtual border project, $2 million, to the cost to do one mile of the border fence and how much has been spent on the FBI net which that is still not running,” Reay said. “So, we feel that with our limited role that we are being very efficient.”

Shapleigh says the origin of the funding is what troubles him, no matter what the cost.

“Originally, the money came out of the governor’s discretionary fund, that is, the legislature had no ability to affect his money. Many lawmakers now want to know about that money,” Shapleigh said. “The governor has been very secretive about this program. We have asked questions about dollars spent and we will ask more about the budget for the program.”

Reay says that all funding for the program was properly managed and accounted for.

“We have undergone audits. In fact, the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition just completed one, we had the closeout on July 10, and it was an external audit done by independent auditors,” Reay said. “They had zero findings on us. That means nothing was wrong. That is almost impossible in an audit, but we were able to achieve that and we are very proud of that fact. The funding is a direct reimbursement for the cost of the service [from Blueservo, the website host].”

Shapleigh says the problems with the program have their roots in the governor’s hidden agenda.

“Perry’s program is about pandering to the far right,” Shapleigh said. “He is using the border watch program to attract viewers who then support him in Republican primaries. So, the program is not about security, it is about politics.”

Even more upsetting for Shapleigh is the fact that this money had no true purpose when it came to securing the border.

“In my view, that has been a monumental waste of money. Rick Perry’s virtual border program is about pandering to political extremists to get votes, not about making the border a safer place,” Shapleigh said. “If we focus on thwarting drug cartels by using the model that New York state used in thwarting the Sicilian Mafia, we would get much better results to keep Texas safe.”

The system was used to report only eight incidents to law enforcement, less than 1/5 of one percent  of the goal set at the program’s inception.

“By any objective measure, Perry’s border watch program is a failure,” Shapleigh said. “If measured by arrests per dollar, that is one of the most expensive law enforcement programs in Texas.”

Shapleigh said that immigration and border security is a federal issue and that the state should not interfere.

“First, immigration is a federal issue that should be handled by federal agencies, so spending money at the state level on this program is a mistake,“ Shapleigh said.

Although Shapleigh said that the public should not be the entity to monitor the border, he does feel that a video surveillance monitored by law enforcement could be successful.
“Some security initiatives that use surveillance can be successful if the responder is a trained law enforcement officer in Border Patrol. Perry’s program fails because there is no responder to deal with sightings, and the people making these sightings are not trained in what they are looking at,” Shapleigh said.

Reay explains that, while online viewers monitor the cameras, law enforcement agencies respond to the reports.

“[Viewers] simply type in on the website what they see, it goes to a server bin, the server sends that information to a sheriff’s department who will examine what the viewer is watching and either handle it themselves or refer it to a local police department or the Border Patrol to respond,” Reay said. “You are actually having a law enforcement entity making that command decision as to what action should take place.”

Reay says this system has the support of 85% of El Pasoans according to a poll conducted by the TBSC, and that the 124,933 people who have signed up for the site do so because of the true results that the program has achieved.

Reay said that the program has resulted in eight drug seizures since its inception and is responsible for confiscating over 8000 pounds of marijuana.

“What we cannot measure that we believe is equally significant is the number of people who have turned back because of the cameras,” Reay said.

Reay said that the network of cameras is also more efficient than stationing law enforcement on the border.

“You put these resources out there, you leverage that technology, and you get a better result with fewer people.”

Currently, the program has run out of funding from the original grant but remains operational.

“Right now, the camera system is still up but it is not being funded,” Reay said. “Blueservo has kept the website active because they don’t want to tear it down and then have to rebuild it, but they can’t do that forever.”

If Gov. Perry decides to continue funding the program, it will likely remain a controversial topic.

“It’s not just going out and hanging a camera on a pole,” Reay said. “There is a little more to it than that.”

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