Albuquerque, NM (KKOB) — A new high-tech surveillance blimp has arrived at the U.S. Border Patrol’s Santa Teresa Station in southern New Mexico. Known as the Tethered Aerostat Radar System, the 180- to 208-foot-long blimps, can detect low-flying aircraft approaching the border and identify other types of traffic in rugged terrain – for up to 200 miles. The blimp will keep watch over an area within the El Paso Sector of the Border Patrol, where migrant apprehensions and smuggling attempts remain constant even as encounters have plummeted in other parts of the sector. The Border Patrol, as of last Tuesday, had run across 168 deceased migrants in the sector, with many having perished this spring and summer in the New Mexico desert after getting lost or being abandoned by smugglers.
