Listen to the session or watch below The US has spent billions building a “virtual wall” of surveillance towers along its southern border over the past 25 years, promising they will help detect and apprehend border crossers and save lives. But a groundbreaking investigation by MIT Technology Review has documented over a thousand people who moved through areas watched by these towers without being reached or apprehended, and who ultimately died there.
Some were even under the watch of newly installed AI-powered towers designed to spot people automatically. Our findings reveal a humanitarian crisis more visible than previously known, and repeated failures of the virtual wall’s basic security promise. Watch a conversation examining the failures of border surveillance technology and uncovering the stories of the people who die in the borderlands.
Speakers : Mat Honan , editor in chief, James O’Donnell , senior AI reporter, and Eileen Guo , senior features and investigations reporter Recorded on September 28, 2026 Related Stories The US spent billions on border surveillance. Why can’t it catch people before they die? How we made the first comprehensive map of deaths along the US border’s “virtual wall” 4 ways to address the failures we found along the US border’s “virtual wall”
