When José Morales Bernal crossed the border into the United States on April 8, 2024, surveillance towers should have triggered alerts. Instead, he died in the desert. Our reporting reveals previously unreported failures of the so-called virtual wall.

Both technology and agents are failing. In 2023, the government estimated plans for using the towers, which now number 803, would cost $6.2 billion over their lifespan. With historic funding awarded in 2025, CBP plans to spend $1 billion for 1,497 more towers by 2034.

Yet CBP has done little to assess how its towers are working or how many people have died where they keep watch. Officials across four presidential administrations believed deaths were rare or nonexistent. But our reporting shows that is not the case.

None could point to any comparable analysis the government had ever conducted. When bodies are found, CBP does not formally investigate whether surveillance should have detected them or why agents didn't reach them. Anduril towers use AI to detect and classify people, vehicles, and animals and alert Border Patrol agents.

CBP evaluates technology based on detection, response coordination, agent safety, and mission outcomes. The most pressing question is whether authorities knew someone was there and failed to reach them, or weren't aware anyone was crossing at all. Either is a system failure.