Arivaca, AZ 
31.525347, -111.289220
Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT​​​​​​​)
Colter Thomas, May 2023
This was the first surveillance tower I visited and photographed for this project—an Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT) manufactured by a U.S. subsidiary of Elbit Systems, an Israeli military technology contractor. Installed sometime between 2007 and 2010, this tower sits on top of the highest point in the immediate surroundings. This is another angle of the tower seen in the background of image 18. The cross of Martin Zamora Pastrana is visible to someone standing at this location, out of frame to the right of this image. 
TCA-TUS-041
Our own 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.
Below: 2024 - IFT (after installation)
Below: 2003 (Before installation, Ruby road not yet paved)