shadow helicopter
On January 18, a week before Donald Trump issued Wednesday's executive order decreeing the immediate construction of a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency posted a "Request for Information" to a federal database of government contract opportunities for private businesses. Although released without fanfare, the solicitation appears to be one of the earliest operational glimpses into the federal government's plans for heightened security along U.S. land borders under the Trump administration.

The request makes clear that in the days preceding Trump's swearing in, CBP was already taking steps to dramatically scale up its surveillance capabilities along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Because of the often treacherous and desolate terrain along the country's 1,954-mile southern land border, many have speculated that in such areas Trump's wall could be more of a digital surveillance shield composed of video camera towers and drones that scan for border crossing activity.

Now, according to the documents, the CBP is "contemplating an expansion" of Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS) that would deploy the program's digital watchtowers to some of the border's most isolated regions.

A document attached to the request for information details CBP's eventual goal of deploying RVSS towers in every section of its operations along the U.S.-Mexico border. The overhaul, according the CBP's estimation, would more than double the program's surveillance towers in six of its nine Mexican border sectors, increasing from 222 towers to 446 towers. The envisioned placement of the requested towers falls in line with Trump's Mexico-focused anti-immigrant rhetoric: Of the 229 new towers detailed in the request, only 5 would be placed along the Canadian border.

In an apparent nod to Trump's fixation on Mexico, the document shows that CBP hopes to build its first new RVSS towers in the agency's Big Bend sector, which covers more than 420 miles of a largely unpopulated and mountainous border region along the Rio Grande. In recent years, the Big Bend sector has seen the lowest rates of migrant apprehension on the Mexican border. The CBP document states that the agency hopes to build eight RVSS structures, including two "relay towers," in that sector.