Montezuma Pass, Coronado Peak, AZ
31.349889, -110.285611
Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT)
Colter Thomas, January 2024
Our work to learn about and document America's border security infrastructure began when we met and realized we had similar questions about the towers we had encountered in southern Arizona. Colter, who grew up in Tucson, has been visiting the area around Arivaca with his father since he was a child, so we started there. Looking at this landscape, free for a moment from the geopolitical maps through which we so often see the world around us, it is striking how invisible the border is … if it weren't for the steel and concrete that has been assembled in the walls and towers that cross the prairie. And as we look up at this tower, noting the IFT technology tailored to the tower hardware of the now-defunct SBInet program, we begin to see something that has become clearer as our work has expanded: Infrastructure like this watchtower does not simply delineate or fortify the border, it is the border.
TCA-SON-0062
Below: 2023 - IFT (after installation)
Below: 2017 (IFT being built)
Below: 2015 (Site before installation)
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22139207-2012-sectionj-1geographiclaydowndata01-09-132