A little-publicized method the CBP uses to keep an eye on the Mexican border and the southeastern coastline is the Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS). For more than 30 years, TARS has employed a series of giant “aerostats” — essentially unmanned blimps tethered to the ground — each containing a ton of radar equipment capable of detecting aircraft as small as an ultralight up to a distance of 200 miles. The aerostats are also equipped to monitor surface travel and have been a useful resource in estimating the numbers of “got-aways” crossing otherwise unnoticed between border checkpoints. Each aerostat costs about $8.9 million to build and outfit and has a yearly operating cost of around $5 million, making the program one of the most economical arrows in the CBP’s enforcement quiver.
Last year, there were a dozen such aerostats, from Arizona to Florida. Today, only four remain, the others having been taken down due to “lack of funding.” For a government that has already given Ukraine, one of the most corrupt countries in the world, over $113 billion, it’s a little surprising they couldn’t maintain an extremely low-cost program like TARS.
Actually, no, it’s not really surprising. It’s not the cost. It’s the motivation. And the Biden government simply doesn’t want to know what’s going on at the border — and it doesn’t want you to know either. As Rodney Scott, a former Border Patrol chief told Fox News: “This administration doesn’t really, truly care about securing the border. They care about optics by dropping these aerostats … . So they’re going to lose one more visual into what’s really going on.”
That’s the dirty little secret of the grounded blimps.
For more, see CIS.org.