She died at the San Diego border. A surveillance camera was in plain sight
The article recounts the death of Graciela Gómez Hernández in the Otay Mountain Wilderness, an area heavily monitored by surveillance technology. It underscores the persistence of migrant deaths despite the presence of advanced border security infrastructure.
Why it matters
It illustrates the limitations of surveillance in preventing deaths in rugged, high-risk border terrain.
Artificial intelligence She died at the San Diego border. A surveillance camera was in plain sight In Southern California’s Otay Mountain Wilderness, the federal surveillance network seems unavoidable. But year after year, migrant deaths persist.
She had only walked for a couple of hours, and already she was lost.
It was early afternoon on Sept. 14, 2025, when 30-year-old Graciela Gómez Hernández crossed the border from the eastern edge of Tijuana into Southern California, sending voice messages to her mother and sister as she walked.
This story is part of Dying on Camera , a collaboration between MIT Technology Review and Times of San Diego . Journalists in both newsrooms spent the past year examining the failures of border surveillance technology and uncovering the stories of the people who die in the borderlands .
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