‘Deterrence is boring’: the US troops at sharp end of Trump’s border crackdown

Armored vehicles, hi-tech surveillance systems and squadrons of drones: inside the militarized buildup at the US-Mexico border

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nside an armored vehicle, an army scout uses a joystick to direct a long-range optical scope toward a man perched atop the US-Mexico border wall cutting across the hills of this Arizona frontier community.

The man lowers himself toward US soil between coils of concertina wire. Shouts ring out, an alert is sounded and a US Customs and Border Protection SUV races toward the wall – warning enough to send the man scrambling back over it, disappearing into Mexico.

The sighting on Tuesday was one of only two for the army infantry unit patrolling this sector of the southern border, where an emergency declaration by Donald Trump has thrust the military into a central role in deterring migrant crossings at US ports of entry.