PRIVACY, IMMIGRANT RIGHTS GROUPS SLAM BIDENS SMART WALL
By Chris Mills Rodrigo, The Hill.
February 27, 2021 | EDUCATE!
Above photo: John Moore/Getty Images.
A coalition of privacy and immigrant rights groups are pushing back on the
Biden administrations proposal to deploy a smart wall on the southern
border.
In a statement released Thursday, first obtained by The Hill, the 40 groups
slam the legislation introduced in Congress last week as a continuation of
the Trump administrations racist border policies, not a break from it.
The letter pans the proposed use of smart technology at the border as
Trumps wall by another name.
The mammoth immigration bill, which is being spearheaded by Sen. Bob
Menendez (D-N.J.) and Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), authorizes the
Department of Homeland Security to develop technology and surveillance
infrastructure to manage and secure the southern border.
The Biden administrations proposal is light on specific systems, but pushes
for technology at ports of entry border crossing points, shipping ports
and airports that can expand the ability to detect illicit activity.
Several sections of the legislation call for the collection of biometric
data, and at one point it mentions improving non-intrusive inspection
equipment, and radar and aerial surveillance equipment.
That lack of specificity allows for very expansive deployment of technology
at the border, Julie Mao, director of Just Futures Law, told The Hill.
Smart technology is essentially the existing technology infrastructure
that is already getting built at border points of entry, and frankly in the
interior of the U.S., she said, pointing to funding allocated in the 2021
financial year budget to manned and unmanned aircraft, tower-based
surveillance tech and efforts by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
to build out its own biometrics database using facial recognition and iris
scanning.
What the Biden bill does is overkill on tech surveillance, Mao added.
The groups, including Mijente, Fight for the Future and United We Dream,
point to research suggesting that this kind of technology can lead migrants
to take longer and more dangerous routes that can result in increased
deaths.
The immigration proposal includes some level of oversight, including
requiring the DHS inspector general to ensure that the deployed systems are
effective, the least intrusive means and cost effective.
The evaluation requirement is inadequate, the groups say, because the
inspector general lacks authority and the analysis is focused on determining
whether the systems are good at deterring immigrants, which they argue is
the wrong goal.
The question cannot continue to be: How do we more efficiently deter
migrants? they write. Rather than pursue failed strategies, the Biden
Administration should invest in border communities, restore areas harmed by
wall construction, welcome people seeking safety or a better life, and
curtail funding for invasive surveillance technologies.
The statement also points to the use of DHS technology purportedly for
border surveillance to monitor activity in the U.S. The agency deployed
helicopters, airplanes and drones to monitor Black Lives Matter protests
last summer after the police killing of George Floyd.
Border enforcement policies have long served as a testing ground for
military grade surveillance at the border and far into the interior, the
groups wrote.
The Hill has reached out to spokespeople for the White House, Menendez and
Sánchez for comment on the statement.
The Biden administrations immigration proposal, which aims to give 11
million people a path to U.S. citizenship, has slim odds of passing through
the deadlocked Senate.
The groups behind the letter praised efforts by the new president to roll
back some of the Trump administrations immigration policies but stressed
that protection from deportation and access to due process should not come
at the cost of militarization and surveillance.
This is not the first time that smart border technology has been suggested
as an alternative to a physical barrier.
When Democrats and some Republicans floated a proposal in 2019 to fund
drones, motion sensors and biometric collection instead of Trumps $5.7
billion wall it was panned by civil liberties groups as invasive.
Although a stand-alone bill dedicating that funding to border technology
never materialized, funding for the same systems was included in both the
2020 and 2021 budgets.
