Phone App Helps Immigrants Cross Border

A new smart phone application designed to help illegal immigrants cross the border from Mexico is set to be released, reports NBCConnecticut.com.

The San Diego research team behind the new "app" says it's meant to be a humanitarian tool.

"It's really just designed for you to turn it on, and the compass would show you where is the nearest safety site — be that Border Patrol or highway or water — in case you're in extreme emergency," co-creator Micha Cardenas told NBC Connecticut.

The application, dubbed the Transborder Immigrant tool, is designed for Motorola phones equipped with GPS.

Researchers are wrapping up testing in the desert along the border and say they are working with immigrant rights advocates and religious groups to distribute the phones in Mexico in 2010. At least some of the funding has come from the Transborder Humanities Institute at University of California, San Diego.

But not everyone is happy about the idea. The California Coalition for Immigration Reform want the creators to be arrested and the Board Patrol say it could pose a threat.

"If they fall into the wrong people's hands — be it terrorists or gang members or people that are here to harm our country — they can also use this technology,"  Border Patrol agent Julius Alatorre told NBCConnecticut. "So while the intent may be good, in the wrong hands, it could turn out to be a bad thing."

The Border Patrol, which tells NBC Connecticut that the technology is nothing new, says their agents are prepared to counter the application with their own technology, including ground sensors.

Now there really is an app for everything.

Photo courtesy of geee.darryl via Flickr.