Border Patrol Rescue Beacon installed near the Alamo Canyon Campground on Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Pima County, Arizona. Credit: Tara Plath, 2019.
ABOUT BORDER PATROL RESCUE BEACONS
There are approximately 58 rescue beacons across southern Arizona, installed and maintained by US Border Patrol. These beacons are intended to be used by individuals in need of rescue in this remote and rugged desert landscape, specifically individuals or groups crossing the border without state permission.
The objects are mobile, solar powered, and designed for minimal environmental impact as most of them are installed on federally-managed conservation land and a wildlife refuge. While the designs vary by Border Patrol sector and year of installation, most include a 28-35’ metal pole secured to a 4×4’ cement base; a powerful strobing blue LED light secured to the top and most visible at night, and mirrored metal designed to spin and reflect sunlight for increased visibility during the day; a red button intended to be pressed to summon rescue, which comes in the form of Border Patrol agents, and in some cases a satellite phone for direct communication; and a motion-activated camera that provides the nearest Border Patrol command center with an image of those calling for rescue; and a sign including pictographs and instructions in English, Spanish, and Tohono O’odham—the language of one of the indigenous peoples whose ancestral lands the objects stand on.
The signage does not explain that rescue comes in the form of Border Patrol personnel, who then assesses the health of the individual or group before processing them for immigration violations resulting in deportation. There is also testimony of individuals waiting hours for rescue with no response, suggesting that the beacons are either not properly maintained, or that the discretionary powers held by Border Patrol can result in a failure to respond to calls for rescue.
ABOUT THE ARIZONA BEACON MAP PLATFORM
This platform is intended to be used as a tool for the purposes of humanitarian aid and research in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands, where thousands of people have died or disappeared while attempting to cross the border outside of state sanctioned channels, a direct consequence of drastic border enforcement policy shifts in the 1990s under the “Prevention Through Deterrence” strategy. While US Border Patrol presents the beacons as part of their efforts to save the lives of migrants in the desert, the agency does not publish any publicly-accessible information regarding their locations or effectiveness, shielding both the beacons and the agency from rigorous scrutiny. In the 2019 high-profile prosecutions of humanitarian aid workers in the area, a federal prosecutor made reference to the beacons, claiming: “humanitarian aid should be left to the Border Patrol.” Meanwhile, human rights report titled “Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance,” published by La Coalicíon de Derechos Humanos and No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, provides extensive evidence of Border Patrol abuses and neglect in their search and rescue operations.
The Arizona Beacon Map is intended to serve a number of purposes, including:
- supporting the work of humanitarian workers and volunteer Search and Rescue operations, with the beacon map offering additional points of reference when searching for missing persons in this vast and remote region;
- increasing awareness and visibility of objects that present themselves as neutral points of care or rescue while obfuscating their function within the US border regime;
- providing data to interested researchers and activists working in the region in their own investigations of border securitization and the appropriation of humanitarian rhetoric by US Border Patrol.
The map was created using information compiled from a survey of publicly-available satellite imagery, Freedom of Information Act requests, and knowledge shared by humanitarian aid workers familiar with the area.
The MAP provides locations and details about each identified beacon within two sets: beacons that have been recently and confidently verified, and a second set of beacons that require additional verification. This second set is less certain due to outdated public satellite imagery and the lack of recent demonstrative evidence that those beacons remain installed at their noted locations.
The Arizona Beacon Map platform is the cumulation of an investigation conducted by interdisciplinary writer and researcher Tara Plath while studying at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London from 2018-2019. You can read a fuller account of the ways in which the beacons function here.