Towers built by Anduril missed people who later died nearby, and CBP has never audited the network’s effectiveness.

MIT Technology Review published a year-long investigation into deaths near the virtual wall, the network of AI-enabled surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border. Reporters found that people walked through monitored areas undetected and later died nearby, with bodies undiscovered for weeks. Broken towers, algorithms that failed to flag people, and agents who ignored alerts all contributed.

The virtual wall relies on towers built by the defense company Anduril, which continues to win federal contracts. Customs and Border Protection has installed roughly 800 towers but publishes no comprehensive map of them. Researchers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation mapped nearly 600 towers, and MIT Technology Review verified locations with satellite imagery.

The findings show that deploying computer vision at scale does not guarantee detection. Operators that run sensor networks face the same gaps: hardware that fails silently, models that miss edge cases, and alert pipelines that end in human review with no accountability. New Mexico state representative Sarah Silva called for a federal audit, noting the system does not appear to work.

The US government plans to spend $1 billion to triple the size of the virtual wall by 2034. Customs and Border Protection has never audited the effectiveness of its towers, according to sources, even though it has tracked installation dates since at least 2015. An internal audit would give a full count of deaths and identify where along the border the failures concentrate.

What matters

• MIT Technology Review documented more than 1,050 deaths near the surveillance towers.
• Broken towers and detection algorithms that miss people show the limits of deployed AI surveillance.
• The US will spend $1 billion to triple the virtual wall by 2034, and Anduril is poised to win more contracts.

Why it matters

The US will spend $1 billion to triple the virtual wall by 2034, and Anduril is poised to win more contracts.

This GenAI News article was prepared in original wording using reporting and materials published by MIT Technology Review AI. Source reference: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1144164/border-towers-surveillance-policy-recommendations/.

Drafted by the GenAI News review pipeline.