On Patrol

In Hereford, Glenn Spencer uses state-of-the-art equipment to find border-crossers

HEREFORD, ARIZ.—Glenn Spencer is the president and founder of the American Border Patrol. His organization, an immigration-watchdog group, has been in operation for seven years.

On the afternoon of Oct. 15, Spencer took a reporter and me on a tour of the border fence that runs along his property. This is the section that he patrols regularly.

Spencer and his organization have spent more than a million dollars of mostly donated funds to equip his ranch with monitoring devices that allow him to keep tabs on crossing activity. The equipment ranges from military-grade weapons to high-tech monitoring devices like thermal cameras, seismic sensors, experimental planes and recording devices.

Once his equipment picks up movement, Spencer records the data and uses it to inform the U.S. Border Patrol, he said.

During the tour, Spencer stopped at a section of the fence that has generated controversy: Thousands of small American flags are attached to the fence; each flag carries a message from supporters who demand that the federal government do more to curb illegal immigration.