https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43zwpg/this-congressman-wants-to-build-a-digital-border-wall-that-would-also-provide-rural-broadband

Texas Representative Will Hurd—the only Republican to hold a district that falls along the southern border—is not in favor of a border wall. Instead, he’s partial to the idea of a “digital” wall: a border-wide system of technology such as cameras, sensors, and drones communicating through a fiber optic network to keep the border secure. And he thinks it could have the added benefit of closing the digital divide.

The Texas-Mexico border is a region that is particularly hard hit by the digital divide. Hurd believes that a fiber optic network installed for the purpose of connecting border security technology could pull double duty as an internet backbone for local communities to tap into.