Roma, TX
26.399997, -99.01317
Relocatable Remote Video Surveillance System (R-RVSS)
Dugan Meyer, January 2024
This relocatable version of the Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS) is part of a dense network of surveillance technologies and police officers deployed throughout the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in southern Texas. Spread across the four counties that comprise the region, 91 percent of the population here identifies as Hispanic or Latino according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Residents have long complained of discriminatory and brutal treatment from police, and recent research has demonstrated that such experiences remain disproportionately common under Operation Lone Star, Governor Greg Abbot’s $11 billion (and counting) border security operation, which has flooded the region with National Guard soldiers, additional police, and a range of surveillance and enforcement infrastructure.
The scale and intensity of the police presence under Operation Lone Star is difficult to describe. Nowhere else along the border—and, for that matter, anywhere else—have we encountered so many police, from CBP and Border Patrol agents to National Guard soldiers, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, sheriff’s deputies, local municipal police officers, and scores of others without uniforms and in unmarked cars, trucks, and vans. They roam the state highway that runs through many of the towns in this region or park and wait in countless semi-concealed positions, like behind this auto supply store.
Texas Military Department's Base Camp Walker, housing national and state guard troops as part of Operation Lone Star; 27.377703, -99.471835 (Laredo, Texas); Digital photograph; January 2024.
Unmarked Texas Military Department installation, housing national and state guard troops as part of Operation Lone Star; 26.890035, -99.284931 (Zapata, Texas); Digital photograph; January 2024.