Why A “Virtual Border Wall” Is Not Something To Root For

by Mireya Sanchez-Maes

Mentor: Profs. Noelani Arista & David A.M. Goldberg; Student Editor: Bhargavi Garimella

We’ve all heard the rhetoric.

They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. Killers. Criminals.

Trump’s racially inflammatory speech not only invigorates prejudice and emboldens domestic hate groups, but it also plays a key role in justifying the expansion of what is already the largest law enforcement agency in the country — U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Still, Trump’s strategy is by no means new. The rallying-cry to “build a wall” along the U.S./Mexico border taps into a decades long push for heightened border security fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment. This traces all the way back through Richard Nixon’s “Operation Intercept”, a 1969 militaristic anti-drug measure along the southern border, resulting in a near shut down of all U.S/Mexico border crossings. While largely ineffective (and consequently terminated after a mere 3-weeks), Operation Intercept was only successful in fostering anti-Mexican sentiment and inciting a decades-long war on drugs.

Now, in opposition to Trump’s wall, many liberals including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, Will Hurd, Henry Cuellar, Brian Fitzpatrick, and John Tester have promoted an increase in “smart” border technology as a cheaper and more effective deterrent.

“I’ve said that we ought to have a smart wall.” U.S. House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn told CNN in 2019, “I defined that as a wall using drones to make it too high to get over, using x-ray equipment to make it too wide to get around, and using scanners to go deep enough not to be able to tunnel under it.”

From surveillance towers and sensors to drones and Automated Targeting Systems (ATS), a high-tech approach to border security might seem like an “effective, efficient, and humane” option, but is a “virtual wall” really any better than the militarization stunts of yore? (Spoiler alert: the answer is no.)

Civil liberty groups including the Due Process Institute, Center for Media Justice, Mijente, National Immigration Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have all raised alarm — citing the inefficacy of previous surveillance systems and the technology’s immense potential for abuse.

“These systems are reflective of advances in sensor and analytics technologies that are going to have serious repercussions for Americans’ privacy. The combination could turn us into a surveillance society where our every move is tracked.” Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU, told the Guardian.

Moreover, biometric surveillance technology such as facial recognition is already being implemented at established ports of entry, while iris scanners developed by BI2 Technologies are being piloted by sheriffs’ in border communities. As explained by the Executive Director of Media Justice, Malkia Cyril, “This is an example of the growing trend of authoritarian use of technology to track and stalk immigrant communities.”

But historically, surveillance technology rarely stays at the border. As explained in a 2019 letter to Congress signed by many civil liberties organizations including the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), “the border is often a testing ground for surveillance technology that is later deployed throughout the United States.”

Moreover, according to federal regulations, CBP has the authority to operate within 100 miles of any U.S boundary. According to location intelligence company ESRI, approximately 65.3 percent of the entire U.S. population lives within this jurisdiction. So as the border becomes increasingly more militarized, our cities do as well. This is especially problematic as facial recognition scans have been proven to exhibit a strong racial bias, which, coupled with over-policing, only exacerbates police violence against communities of color.

The expansion of border surveillance networks has also been shown to negatively impact migrant deaths.

In their 2019 paper in the Journal of Borderland Studies, researchers Geoffrey Alan Boyce, Sarah Launius and Alicia Dinsmore apply “geospatial analysis of landscape and human variables” to study the effects of a 2006 surveillance initiative called Secure Border Initiative (SBInet) at the Arizona/Sonora Border. Summarizing their findings in The Hill, the authors conclude that the virtual wall likely contributed to an increase in migrant deaths.

“We found a meaningful and measurable shift in the location of human remains toward routes of travel outside the visual range of the SBInet system, routes that simultaneously required much greater physical exertion, thus increasing peoples’ vulnerability to injury, isolation, dehydration, hyperthermia and exhaustion. Our research findings show that in addition to its monetary cost and its questionable operational efficacy, the “smart border” technology presently being promoted by the Democratic congressional leadership contributes to deadly outcomes.”

So based on these findings, it’s clear that this technology is by no means the “humane” alternative to Trump’s border wall that it may seem. The true solution then? Stop criminalizing immigration. We can start by divesting from companies who profit from this military-industrial complex (Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Elbit Systems, BI2, General Dynamics, and Anduril to name a few) and reducing the power of special interest lobbyists over elected representatives. We must also end border militarization and commit to accountability and due process in systems of immigration enforcement. But most importantly, we must prioritize U.S border policies that genuinely work to safeguard human rights, regardless of immigration status.

Sources

• “25 Tech and Human Rights Organizations Call on Congress Not to Fund Invasive Surveillance…” Medium, Medium, 7 Feb. 2019, medium.com/@fightfortheftr/25-tech-and-human-rights-organizations-call-on-congress-not-to-fund-invasive-surveillance-428b9add26ae.
• Chambers, Samuel Norton, et al. “Mortality, Surveillance and the Tertiary ‘Funnel Effect’ on the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Geospatial Modeling of the Geography of Deterrence.” Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2019, pp. 1–26., doi:10.1080/08865655.2019.1570861.
• Clyburn (D-S.C.), Rep. James E. “Border Security That Is Smart, Just and Merciful.” TheHill, 29 Jan. 2019, thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/lawmaker-news/427307-border-security-that-is-smart-just-and-merciful?rnd=1548741699.
• Grandin, Greg. “The Militarization of the Southern Border Is a Long-Standing American Tradition.” The Nation, 14 Jan. 2019, www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-militarization-of-the-southern-border-is-a-long-standing-american-tradition/.
• Harlow, Poppy. “ Interview with Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC).” CNN, 29 Feb. 2019.
• “House Democratic Conferees Unveil Proposal for Smart, Effective Border Security.” House Committee on Appropriations, 30 Jan. 2019, appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-democratic-conferees-unveil-proposal-for-smart-effective-border-security.
• Misra, Tanvi. “Mapping Who Lives in Border Patrol’s ‘100-Mile Zone’.” Bloomberg.com, 14 May 2018, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-14/mapping-who-lives-in-border-patrol-s-100-mile-zone.
• Solon, Olivia. “‘Surveillance Society’: Has Technology at the US-Mexico Border Gone Too Far?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 June 2018, www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/13/mexico-us-border-wall-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-technology.
• Zarracina, Javier. Vox, 2020, cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sgwtTljxEjBENYgib7LhS0Zuy-k=/0x0:1920x1080/2820x1586/filters:focal(807x387:1113x693):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63841445/SMART_WALLv2.0.jpg.