Exposing Surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border: 2024 Year in Review in Pictures

Some of the most picturesque landscapes in the United States can be found along the border with Mexico. Yet, from San Diego’s beaches to the Sonoran Desert, from Big Bend National Park to the Boca Chica wetlands, we see vistas marred by the sinister spread of surveillance technology, courtesy of the federal government.  

EFF refuses to let this blight grow without documenting it, exposing it, and finding ways to fight back alongside the communities that live in the shadow of this technological threat to human rights.  

Here’s a galley of images representing our work and the new developments we’ve discovered in border surveillance in 2024.  

1. Mapping Border Surveillance  

EFF’s stand-up display of surveillance at the US-Mexico border. Source: EFF

EFF published the first iteration of our map of surveillance towers at the U.S.-Mexico border in Spring 2023, having pinpointed the precise location of 290 towers, a fraction of what we knew might be out there. A year- –and- –a -half later, with the help of local residents, researchers, and search-and-rescue groups, our map now includes more than 500 towers.  

In many cases, the towers are brand new, with some going up as recently as this fall. We’ve also added the location of surveillance aerostats, checkpoint license plate readers, and face recognition at land ports of entry. 

In addition to our online map, we also created a 10’ x 7’ display that we debuted at “Regardless of Frontiers: The First Amendment and the Exchange of Ideas Across Borders,” a symposium held by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in October. If your institution would be interested in hosting it, please email us at aos@eff.org. 

2. Infrastructures of Control

The Infrastructures of Control exhibit at University of Arizona. Source: EFF

Two University of Arizona geographers—Colter Thomas and Dugan Meyer—used our map to explore the border, driving on dirt roads and hiking in the desert, to document the infrastructure that comprises the so-called “virtual wall.” The result: “Infrastructures of Control,” a photography exhibit in April at the University of Arizona that also included a near-actual size replica of an “autonomous surveillance tower.”   

You can read our interview with Thomas and Meyer here.

3. An Old Tower, a New Lease in Calexico 

A remote video surveillance system in Calexico, Calif. Source: EFF

Way back in 2000, the Immigration and Naturalization Service—which oversaw border security prior to the creation of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — leased a small square of land in a public park in Calexico, Calif., where it then installed one of the earliest border surveillance towers. The lease lapsed in 2020 and with plans for a massive surveillance upgrade looming, CBP rushed to try to renew the lease this year. 

This was especially concerning because of CBP’s new strategy of combining artificial intelligence with border camera feeds.  So EFF