(Editor’s Note: This is the next installment of our series, “Tech Policy under Trump 2.0.” Read the first article in the series here. Listen to the author further discuss ideas from this article on the Just Security Podcast here).
The day after Donald Trump was reelected U.S. president, stocks in private prison firms soared. These firms may soon expand prisons to house detainees awaiting deportation and propel an increase in surveillance and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technologies to accomplish this task.
In his campaign and after reelection, Trump has signaled sweeping reforms to the U.S. immigration system. Among other things, he promised to: conduct the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, assisted by the military; end birthright citizenship; militarize the border and introduce more border surveillance; reintroduce travel bans similar to the infamous Muslim travel ban in his first term; revive the “remain in Mexico” policy; penalize sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal deportation agents; greatly expand the ambit of ICE; deputize the National Guard to carry out immigration arrests; and suspend refugee admissions.
But the Trump administration cannot do this alone. An already multi-billion dollar border and surveillance industry is set to profit under Trump’s plans for new border enforcement spending, immigration surveillance and mass deportation. And with virtually no safeguards and laws to govern the development and deployment of new technologies such as AI, the U.S.-Mexico border continues to be a laboratory for high-risk experimentation.
Digitizing Migration
In recent years, digital technologies have become embedded in virtually every aspect of migration. From visa triaging algorithms to drone surveillance with biometric data collection capabilities at the border, companies and governments increasingly are developing and deploying unregulated technologies to manage migration. Various reports, including last year’s study by the U.N. Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, which I co-authored with Professor Lorna McGregor, argue that these technologies infringe on fundamental human rights. For example, infringements on the right to privacy occur when sensitive information is shared during asylum procedures, infringements on equality and freedom from discrimination occur when racially-biased algorithms make decisions, and even infringements on the right to life, liberty and security occur when surveillance pushes individuals into life-threatening terrain like the Sonoran desert. These technologies also operate in a system of decision-making which is already opaque, with broad discretion and vast power differences between officials making decisions and people-on-the-move who are most impacted by unregulated or inadequately regulated technologies.
The Elbit Systems Surveillance Tower in the Sonora Desert, Arizona, May 2024. (Photo by Petra Molnar)
Importantly, much of this technological development predates the incoming Trump administration. The Democrats expanded the U.S. border industrial complex and the country’s commitment to so-called “smart border” technologies, presenting them as a “humane alternative” to the Trump wall and an effective deterrent to immigration. However, scholars such as Samuel Norton Chambers, Geoffrey Alan Boyce, Sarah Launius and Alicia Dinsmore found in their peer-reviewed study that increased surveillance does not deter people who are desperate for safety. Instead, people are forced to take more dangerous routes to avoid detection, leading to an increase of mortality at the U.S.-Mexico border. Indeed, during the six years that I have been documenting the impacts of border technologies for my book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, I have personally visited spaces in the Sonoran desert, where people have died after being caught in this growing surveillance dragnet. These individuals were exercising their internationally-protected right to asylum, enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention and established legal principles such as non-refoulement, or the fundamental principle of international human rights and refugee law that prohibits states from returning people to countries where they may face persecution, torture or other human rights violations.
This system of AI-powered border surveillance is growing, including drone surveillance, ground sensors, and fixed surveillance towers by the Israeli company Elbit systems. More novel interventions have also been announced, such as the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) 2022 unveiling of a fleet of “robo-dogs” — quadruped military-grade machines which are joining the theatre of surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Private Sector’s Growing Influence in the White House
Governments around the world are jostling to be the leader in what some have called the “AI arms race,” vying for geopolitical influence by riding on the coattails of innovation. The United States continues to be very much a leader in this race, with Trump already signaling plans to “Make America First in AI.” On Dec. 5, Trump appointed former PayPal executive and billionaire David Sacks as America’s first “AI and crypto czar.” Sacks “will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas,” Trump wrote on social media.
A water barrel placed by Samaritan groups in the Sonoran desert, 2022. (Photo by Petra Molnar)
But Sacks is only the most-recent addition to Trump’s cadre of techno-optimists. Trump appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body. Various other Silicon Valley Republicans, such as defense contractor Palantir’s founder Peter Thiel and Anduril’s CEO Palmer Luckey, will likely have influence in the new administration. Thiel financed the meteoric rise of Vice President-elect JD Vance, while Anduril continues to make advances both in border surveillance as well as autonomous warfare, once again highlighting the conflation of militarization, national security and migration concerns.
The Elbit Systems Surveillance Tower, 2022. (Photo by Petra Molnar)
And because governments, including the United States, often cannot develop cutting-edge technologies in-house, they over-rely on public-private partnerships, sold to departments and agencies of government by private sector vendors, whether as a product or service. These partnerships further obfuscate responsibility over the very real implications of using technologies in high-risk applications, such as at the border and in migration. As a result, an algorithm’s source code, its training data or other inputs may be proprietary, and — to the extent that they exist as confidential business assets or intellectual property — can sometimes be shielded from public scrutiny.
Private sector businesses already have an existing independent responsibility to ensure that the technologies they develop do not violate international human rights. Unfortunately, government surveillance, policing, immigration enforcement and border security programs can incentivize and reward industry for developing rights-infringing technologies. For example, invoking the national security carve-outs may enable circumvention of the rights protections and commitments to public transparency and accountability. And if there are profits to be made in the growing border industrial complex, what incentives exist for private sector actors to take the lead in safeguarding the rights of people who are often marginalized?
Global Governance of Border Technologies
Currently, very few laws regulate the integration of AI into border security. There have been some promising moves in recent years, such as the long-awaited European Union’s Act to Regulate Artificial Intelligence (AI Act), which was finally ratified in August 2024. However, while this omnibus bill could have set a global precedent on AI governance, especially in high-risks zones such as the border and migration applications, it falls short in virtually every aspect of recognizing the human impacts of these technologies. The AI Act also has various carveouts and exemptions in place for national security matters, which include technologies used in migration and border enforcement. Additionally, the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law is the world’s first binding treaty on AI. According to its Article 1, the Convention “aims to ensure that activities throughout the lifecycle of artificial intelligence systems are fully consistent with human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.” However, it remains silent on border technologies and other uses of AI, such as policing or welfare, that disproportionately impact marginalized communities, nor does it include safeguards for ethnicity and race.
Internationally, in March 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Resolution entitled “Seizing the opportunities of safe, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems for sustainable development.” Again, this document is near-silent on migration, with one mention of cross-border data flows.
This lack of focus on high-risk border technologies and the EU’s weak governance on border technologies will allow for more and more experimental projects to proliferate, setting a global standard on how governments will approach migration technologies. The EU often sets a precedent for how other countries govern technology. With the weak protections offered by the EU AI act on border technologies, it is no surprise that the U.S. government similarly does little to protect people on the move from harmful technologies.
In October 2023, the Biden administration released its Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. This order does not mention high-risk border technologies. Trump has vowed to rescind the executive order on AI when he returns to the White House.
Unbridled techno-optimism and the growing influence of the private sector go hand in hand, with governance and regulation being misguidedly seen as stifling innovation. As close allies to President-elect Trump, certain tech executives are likely to have significant sway in loosening restrictions on technology at the border.
Politics are Fueling a Digital War on Migration
Border technologies should not be viewed in isolation, but in an ecosystem replete with the criminalization of migration, anti-migrant sentiments and politicized differences. When migration is presented as a problem to be solved, in a lucrative border surveillance industry, it is no wonder that private sector players step in to offer a solution. However, these solutions present serious risks to peoples’ lives, such as when the startup Brinc proposed outfitting drones with tasers to prevent migration from Mexico into the United States. The Canada-U.S. border is also increasingly politicized, with the Canadian government on Dec. 17 announcing a massive expansion of surveillance and tightening of the northern border after Trump threatened a 25 percent tariff on the country.
Two orange crosses mark the final resting place of people who died making the dangerous crossing into the United States, Arizona, 2022. (Photo by Petra Molnar)
In this digital war on migration, paying close attention to what happens at the border and in migration spaces matters because they are often the first places where high-risk technologies are tested. These frontier spaces are opaque, with massive power differentials between state actors and the private sector that benefits from securitization and surveillance, while affected communities continue to be harmed.
Moreover, border surveillance often does not stay at the border. While these technologies may first be trialed in dusty arroyos of the Sonoran desert, they soon find their way to other spaces of public life, such as when the New York City Police Department announced it would be acquiring several of the DHS’s robo-dogs to “keep New York safe,” Fears of domestic surveillance that could target migrant justice defenders, NGOs and human rights workers are also rising. Against this backdrop, it is critical to heed the normalization of border technologies deployed against affected communities as it not only hurts newcomers, but also carries dangerous implications for all of society.