The Just Security Podcast

How Border Technologies Impact Migration

• Just Security • Episode 93

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In just a few weeks, Donald Trump will begin his second term as U.S. president. During his campaign and after reelection, Trump has signaled sweeping reforms to the U.S. immigration system. Among his top goals are promises to conduct the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, militarize the border, and introduce more border surveillance.

In recent years, digital technologies have impacted virtually every aspect of migration. From visa triaging algorithms to drone surveillance with biometric data collection capabilities, companies and governments are increasingly developing and using these technologies to implement their migration policies. 

How are new forms of technology affecting people on the move?  

Joining the show discuss border technologies and what we can expect from the new administration are Judith Cabrera and Petra Molnar. 

Judith is Co-Director of the Border Line Crisis Center, an organization which provides comprehensive networks of care to the migrant community in Tijuana, Mexico. Petra co-runs the Refugee Law Lab at York University and is a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. 

Show Notes: 

Paras Shah: In just a few weeks, Donald Trump will begin his second term as U.S. president. During his campaign and after reelection, Trump has signaled sweeping reforms to the U.S. immigration system. Among his top goals are promises to conduct the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, militarize the border, and introduce more border surveillance. 

In recent years, digital technologies have impacted virtually every aspect of migration. From visa triaging algorithms to drone surveillance with biometric data collection capabilities, companies and governments are increasingly developing and using these technologies to implement their migration policies. 

How are new forms of technology affecting people on the move? 

This is the Just Security Podcast. I’m your host, Paras Shah.  

Joining the show discuss border technologies and what we can expect from the new administration are Judith Cabrera and Petra Molnar.  

Judith is Co-Director of the Border Line Crisis Center, an organization which provides comprehensive networks of care to the migrant community in Tijuana, Mexico. Petra co-runs the Refugee Law Lab at York University and is a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. 

Before we get started, we should note that we're recording this episode on December 23 just for purposes of the facts and what's happening on the ground. Judith, welcome to the show, Petra, welcome back to the show. I want to start by asking both of you to provide us with a big picture overview of how technology, particularly AI and other new technologies, is being used to police borders, both in North America and around the world, for people on the move. And Petra, you documented many examples of this in your book, The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. What did you observe? 

Petra Molnar: First of all, thanks so much for having me back. It's great to be back on the podcast, especially with my colleague, Judith, who's calling in from Tijuana, and she's going to tell you more about her work on the ground there. But yeah, as you said, you know, I've been looking at how new technologies are introduced at the border and in spaces of migration for about six years. And what's been happening is, there is now this trend where essentially every single point of a person's migration journey is impacted by some sort of technology, whether that's, you know, social media scraping all of your online profile before you even move to biometric technology that's used in refugee camps to facial recognition at the border, which I'm sure Judith will talk about —drones, robo dogs, other types of surveillance technology that's used to police movement across state lines, and then also all sorts of technology that actually people interact with once they already arrive. 
You know, that's things like visa triaging algorithms, voice printing, AI lie detectors. Really, like, some of this stuff sounds a bit sci-fi, like something you might come across on a TV show, but it's very real, and the human rights impacts on people on the move are also very real. So, it's really troubling also, to see, though, that a lot of governments now are turning to technology, and this is something that also is a big concern for the incoming Trump administration. 

Paras: Thanks so much for that overview. And Judith, what can you tell us from what you've been seeing in Tijuana? 

Judith Cabrera: Okay, so first off, an apology for the noise. We're having a posada in the whole Christmas spirit thing. What you hear in the background are kids busting a piñata. So, about this surveillance? Well, I think there's not a lot of consciousness or awareness, that would be the word. There's not a lot of awareness for people on the ground about general surveillance, and should any of us be vocally surveilled, I'm sure we wouldn't even think about it. And I see a great possibility of that happening, considering the way the United States does things to, you know, secure their border, like they call it. And, you know, we have been called whitewashed human traffickers. So, I'm pretty sure, like, I don't have evidence, but I also don't have any doubts that we are as human rights defenders of the migrant population being surveilled. So, it comes to a point where you say, okay, I just give up on privacy. And this shouldn't be, like, we really shouldn't normalize being surveilled, and we shouldn't normalize giving our data away to whomever or whatever. 

But I feel, in this case, technology advances way faster than the way society will understand this technology or fully understand the extent of it. So, when it comes to the borders, there is an international trend to this digitalization of the border that they call and however scary these technologies might look like, you know, it does sound like a very post-apocalyptic, sci-fi landscape, but what actually happens, we see, is that a lot of people won't have access. I mean, it's not the best choice to have a digitalized border, but it also comes as a bigger obstacle for people to be able to access their human right to migrate, or their human right for international protection. 

What will happen is a lot of these people won't have a smartphone or a computer with an Internet connection good enough to support, say, CBP One, you know, in the case of the United States border. If they do have it, probably a lot of them won't be digitally alphabetized, I don't know if that's how you would say it in English, enough to be able to manage this technology. Like, you will see a family, depending on the 13-year-old boy, this teenager that's coming with them, to solve the whole technological thing. You know, there is a grandmother and a mother who are in charge. This is their responsible adults, but they don't have access to this technology in terms that they can't understand it, if and when they can afford it. And then we have people who can't even read or write, so this becomes, like, even more of an obstacle for them. And it's more than you would think, you know, like we take for granted that, like everyone's going to have a smartphone and be surveilled. Well, if you're lucky enough, you get to be, you know, surveilled and have your human rights violated through technology. So, it sounds like a lose-lose situation here for the migrant population.

Paras: Oftentimes, a lot of the coverage is focused on how President-elect Donald Trump is likely to use and increase the use of technology to implement his immigration agenda. But a lot of the groundwork for this smart border and these smart border technologies has actually been laid by Democrats. And Petra, in your article for Just Security, you examined some of the literature and scholarly work on this topic that actually shows surveillance technology does not deter people who are on the move from making the journey and seeking safety, and it actually makes that process more deadly. So, how is the technology impacting how people are moving across borders? 

Petra: Yeah, and, you know, thanks for asking that question, because I think there's so much focus now on what's going to be coming up under the Trump administration. And you know, rightly so, because I think there is going to be an exponential increase of a lot of the human rights concerns and issues that Judith was talking about on the ground. But as you say, so, much of this predates this particular moment in time. It's actually the Democratic administrations that introduced smart border technologies and technologies of deterrence to try and prevent people from coming into the United States in this misguided attempt, really, because surveillance and technology doesn't actually stop people from coming. And I think you're making reference to a peer-reviewed study that was put out a few years ago by Jeffrey Boyce and Samuel Chambers and others, that showed that there was an exponential increase of deaths in the U.S.-Mexico frontier corridor as a result of the introduction of technology such as drones and cameras, and again, this kind of surveillance dragnet, because people who are desperate and people who are exercising their internationally protected right to asylum are not going to stop coming just because there is surveillance there. Instead, what they're going to do is take circuitous routes and more dangerous routes, through the inhospitable terrain like the Sonoran Desert and that is leading to loss of life. 

I mean, in my work, I've been lucky enough to visit some of the sites where people have died making these dangerous crossings with some of the search and rescue groups that I've been working with, like Battalion Search and Rescue. And again, I think it's just this short-sighted way of government using technology to try and prevent people from entering the United States, but it doesn't actually even work as intended.

Paras: And along with that, in terms of what we can anticipate from the Trump administration, Trump has appointed former PayPal executive David Sacks as the first AI and crypto czar, and he also has recruited a number of tech executives, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, for informal advisory roles in his new administration. What can we expect in terms of the private sector's influence on the new administration when it comes to trying out some of these technologies and border sites serving as “laboratories of experimentation,” a term I believe you used in your book?

Petra: Yeah, so the influence of the private sector is growing. And you know, this was probably one of the most surprising elements that I learned when I was writing the book and when I was learning about this intersection of technology and migration — just how baked in the private sector is when we innovate at the border. And now with the Trump administration, essentially opening the door to the Oval Office to tech bro friends like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and all these other actors too that are less well known, unfortunately, what we're going to be seeing is this massive private sector influence only getting bigger. 

And not only is that a problem from a governance perspective, because companies and private sector actors are already poorly regulated when it comes to technology, but it's also normatively powerful, right? Because if states have the so-called problem of migration that they're trying to solve through technology and private sector actors say, well, we have a solution for you, and that solution is a robo dog or facial recognition or other types of technologies, they have so much power normatively to set the agenda on what we innovate on and why. And maybe that's when it starts kind of making sense, like why we're developing these tools, AI, lie detectors, drones, robo dogs to, you know, be tested out at the border and not use AI to identify racist border guards, for example, or to audit immigration decision makers. That's a clear choice, right? That adheres to how power operates in society as well, and unfortunately, when we have these cronies in the Oval Office, we're going to be seeing more and more of that, because really, what we're talking about is what journalist Todd Miller in Arizona has been calling the border-industrial complex for many years. And this is now an industry that's worth billions of dollars. So, there's a lot of money to be made at the border, and unfortunately, we're going to see more and more of that.

Paras: And you mentioned the lack of regulation. Europe has some regulation, including the first ever treaty on the governing of some of this AI technology and new technologies. What does the regulatory landscape look like, and where are the gaps?

Petra: Yeah, it's not looking great. And right now, it’s a space where there are some — there were some promising moves, for example, that some of us were looking forward to, like the European Union's AI act. But unfortunately, even that fell short on some of the highest risk technologies, like border tech. And, you know, not to give the European Union too much power, but this is what we sometimes call the Brussels effect, right? Brussels regulates and governs something, and then it creates this kind of cascading effect in other jurisdictions around the world. And so, if, if Brussels and the European Union isn't really putting in really strong regulation and human rights-based framework on tech, then, why would the United States or Canada or Australia regulate? There's not a lot of incentive to create laws and governance mechanisms around the world to put some guardrails around some of the highest risk technologies. 

But I think, you know, this goes beyond migration, right? I mean, we can't even agree on putting a ban on autonomous weapons in war, like we're seeing, you know, in the Gaza genocide, for example. I mean, we can't even agree on that. So, how are we going to agree on regulating border technologies? Again, because it's seen as a solution to the “problem” of migration. So, it's this kind of perfect storm, right? We don't have a lot of law, we don't have a lot of governance mechanisms, and this unbridled turn to introducing more and more private sector actors in this space. I don't think we're going to be seeing a lot more regulation at all, actually, in the coming years. If anything, it's going to be just a free for all. 

Paras: I'm curious what both of you are seeing in terms of creative solutions to these types of problems, like, where is there opportunities for innovation in a positive direction, or in a way that's rights protecting?

Petra: So, I'll bring Judith here, but I just want to preface it by saying that, you know, I think one creative way maybe, is to try and find different ways of working together. And if I can plug the project that brings us together, that’s the Migration Technology Monitor, where we incubate people on the ground who are working on projects at the intersection of technology and migration, because really, there's so much expertise on the ground, like, literally, Judith calling in from Tijuana right now, working on these issues. And I think that's really where a lot of the conversation has to be.  

Judith: I want to take from this comment that you were making on how this surveillance technology does not deter people from migrating. It just makes the process more deadly. I would like to add that nothing deters people from migrating. I mean, in some cases, you have to walk 11 countries and pass a jungle and get on a train on top of it, not inside of it, to try and make it to the border. You have to understand migration as a phenomenon inherent to humanity, since humanity is such, you know? And trying to deter it is just as, it's like, against what it means to be human, it's senseless. 

Paras: Yeah, I definitely appreciate the idea that, you know, really, these people are fleeing for their lives often, and are in desperate situations. Going forward, what are the one or two biggest trends that each of you is tracking? What can we expect? What are you looking for? 

Petra: I think one of the biggest trends that I notice again is, and we've already talked about this a bit, is the growing role of the private sector and the kind of obfuscation of responsibility, you know? The way that technology is introduced as a way to create a further barrier between those people who innovate and develop and present these so-called solutions, and the people who are living, you know, a very complex, messy human reality. You know, and as Judith was reminding us, migration has been with us since time immemorial. People have been moving around the world forever. It's just with the advent of borders, right, and this kind of understanding of limitation around particular areas of the world, areas that are in the so-called Global North, that are inaccessible to the majority of the world. 

That's where, again, I think it's important to think about it from a human first perspective, because not only, again, is migration and natural human phenomenon, but it's also protected by internationally established norms and rights like the Refugee Convention, like international human rights law, and these are all rights that are available to you and me and everyone on the planet. 

And you know, if I can point to another trend, it’s also the fact that we're going to be seeing more and more migration as our planet further deteriorates because of global warming and environmental degradation, right? And it's very short-sighted to think that we can prevent people from coming when you and I might be affected tomorrow, like these things operate on a knife's edge, right? And I think we are a lot more connected with one another than we realize or that politicians would have us realize, in this kind of growing, you know, politicization of difference and pitting communities against one another. That's something that we're seeing around the world as well, and all that does is further division and further this kind of, you know, fear mongering that that is so common with migration. 

Judith: So actually, we see that also with things that are not precisely tech-related, like the wall. You make the wall taller, more people die. They won't stop. They'll go around and swim like, I don't know, 20, 30 meters into the ocean and drown, you know, or they'll pick a more dangerous route to get in there. And what this actually ends up creating is a huge market for human traffickers, because then they have the way, they have the know-how, and they sell it, of course, and sometimes it's not even that. Maybe it's just a product. You know, they'll tell you this part is surveilled by robo dogs or whatever, but I can tell you how to get in there through the mountains. And they'll get the money and then leave people stranded. So, what we see is that this causes a lot of confusion and misinformation. 

This is kind of where our project, together with MTM, works. And what we're doing here in Border Line, we are very close to the border. We're like three to five minutes walking from Chaparral and San Isidro border. So, you'll find a lot of people around here who come to the border with information from six, seven years ago, thinking that they can just state that they have that they are afraid to go back to their place of origin because they fear for their lives and that they should take them in, which is what the law says that it should work like. So, they come to the border, they realize that's not going to happen. CBP throws them back, and they just wander around in the city that they don't know, you know, totally disoriented without any information, and we're building, we call it, a border node, N-O-D-E. 

It's like an information kiosk where people can approach us and receive verified information to the best of our knowledge and updated information and help with CDP One, which we have for the people in our shelter. But there's a lot of people who are not in our shelter who also need help with CDP One, and there's people who will take advantage of this and say, you know, I'll charge you $1,500 to fill up your CBP One thing, and I can guarantee you'll get an appointment, and people will get this $1,500 somehow, sell everything they have, ask people for money, getting debt. 

So, as much as we would like to work against these borders being digitalized, we can barely afford, you know, to make sure that more people have access to this technology and are able to make it through, so that they can start an asylum process in the United States. Is it ideal? No, but that's as far as we go, and we're also thinking a lot about our digital security, so we're working with other people that we also have in common with Monitor, like, helping us get our phones safe, our cloud information safe. 

Paras: We’re short on time, but I wanted to see if there's anything that we haven't touched on yet that either of you would like to add.

Petra: Maybe, if I can just add, you know, ultimately, I think what you know, hearing from Judith and her colleagues at Border Line Crisis Center maybe reminds us, is that ultimately, you know, it's, it's not really about technology, right, but it's about power and power differentials in terms of who is allowed to even be part of the conversation on what we innovate on, and why, and why is it that we're always talking about security and surveillance and keeping people away, rather than actually listening to expertise on the ground in terms of what's happening like today in Tijuana, right? That's maybe how we're trying to work differently at the Migration Technology Monitor, by funding and working with colleagues on the move and people who are in border communities, like Judith, who are really doing the groundbreaking work that that needs attention. 

Judith: Well, on our side, we're very grateful for the support of Tech Monitor and the company that we keep in each other. It's really inspiring. And also because, like I said, digital security is not something we think about a lot. In terms of the other shelter directors, I know nobody's talking about this, you know? So, it felt nice to find this group of people who actually get it, who have a very deep expertise on it, and, you know, who can kind of validate our concerns beyond being paranoid. I think we have a certain degree of paranoia, of course. I mean, who wouldn't in this field, you know? But I don't think it's unfounded. I think it's a very healthy level of caution, maybe. So, having the support of the Tech Monitor has been like, you know, like a breath of fresh air. Okay, this is people we can work with. We're seeing the same things. We share concerns, and we're very grateful to be able to share knowledge, you know, with them. It's been awesome.

Paras: Yeah. And thank you very much to both of you for sharing your expertise with our audience. We’ll be tracking all of this at Just Security. Thank you again for joining the show.  

Judith: Thank you for the invitation, Paras!  

Petra: Thank you!

Paras: This episode was hosted and produced by me, Paras Shah, with help from Clara Apt.

Special thanks to Judith Cabrera and Petra Molnar. You can read all of Just Security’s coverage of human rights, technology, and migration on our website. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

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