Problems with them and cameras under investigation by General Services Administration.

SERGIO BUSTOS
Citizen Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The federal government paid private companies $200 million for high-tech equipment to detect undocumented immigrants, but hundreds of sensors and cameras along the country's borders were not working last year or were not installed in a timely manner, according to an audit report.
Investigators from the General Services Administration's Office of the Inspector General found critical surveillance gaps in Arizona, last month dubbed the weakest portion of the Southwest border by top Homeland Security Department officials. Inspectors visited three sites in 2004 - Nogales, Naco and Tucson - and found none of the remote surveillance systems was fully operational, despite payments of more than $5.2 million since 2001.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said yesterday that the contracts with the companies under investigation expired in September. Mario Villarreal, a Customs spokesman in Washington, D.C., would not say how many cameras and sensors are along the Southwest border, citing national security concerns. But he said about 80 percent of the agency's cameras are functioning.

"I would think they would have 100 percent of (the cameras) working," said Wes Bramhall, president of Arizonans for Immigration Control, an organization that advocates tighter border controls. "It's imperative."

Jack Lebo, a spokesman with the GSA's Office of the Inspector General, would say only that the agency was "following up on the issues raised" in the December audit, which charged that the government paid for "shoddy work" or "for work that was incomplete or never delivered."

The investigation focuses on federal officials and several company executives, including the daughter of a Texas lawmaker who worked for the Border Patrol for more than two decades, according to a report yesterday in the Washington Post.

The newspaper said auditors were reviewing contracts awarded to Alaska-based Chugach Development Corp. and International Microwave Corp., which was bought in 2002 by New York-based L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.

L-3 Communications executives yesterday refused to talk about the findings of government auditors.

The Chugach officials who were involved with the border security project no longer work for the company and could not be reached for comment.

Agents along the Arizona border have reported problems with the surveillance equipment, saying that the cameras often do not cover all of the state's 389-mile border with Mexico.

And earlier this month, Border Patrol officials complained that members of the Minuteman Project, a civilian border-patrol effort that has staked out popular crossing areas in southern Arizona, were setting off sensors, causing agents to respond unnecessarily.

Some members of Congress, including representatives from Arizona, have sought more advanced technology, including ground radar.

Last month, Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner pledged to add 534 agents and more aircraft along Arizona's border, the most popular illegal crossing corridor in the nation.

In the GSA report, auditors said International Microwave Corp. was paid $20 million between 1998 and 2003 for work at certain sites, but that little, if any, work had been completed by last June when they visited eight border locations: Nogales, Naco and Tucson; Carrizo Springs and Laredo, Texas; Detroit; Buffalo, N.Y.; and Blaine, Wash.

In Naco, auditors found equipment in storage and camera poles lying in the desert next to a border patrol station.

In Nogales, the equipment had been delivered, but installation was still in progress last summer.

The Washington Post yesterday reported that auditors also were looking into the possible role played by Rebecca Reyes, who managed the border security project, officially known as the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System for International Microwave. She is the daughter of Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat. The lawmaker is not under investigation.

Rebecca Reyes was hired by Chugach and International Microwave and now is a vice president with L-3 Communications.

She could not be reached for comment, but her father defended his daughter in an interview with The Arizona Republic.

He said the contract was awarded to International Microwave before his daughter joined the company.

Reyes, who spent nearly 30 years with the Border Patrol, has been a strong proponent of using technology to aid agents patrolling the border. He said that he, too, was angry at the auditor's findings on the border security project.

Roger Schneidau, who helps run the Border Patrol's electronic barrier programs, said, "There are sites in varying need of repair," but that in places where the equipment is available and working, "it's incredibly useful to agents."

Anthony Acri, IMC's president until 2003, said the system is well-built and was a good investment for taxpayers.

He said oversight by U.S. officials was proper and effective. Acri said the halt in work on the system "is very dangerous for our country."

Many - but not all - of the system's problems have been resolved in the past year by repair work done by L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., a New York firm that bought IMC in 2003, officials said.

L-3 officials fired some of IMC's executives, including Acri, industry executives said.