Technologies of Immigration Enforcement: Understanding the Role of Private Industry

• In Event: Disrupting Racial Formations in Science and Technology (Co-sponsored by Race and Ethnic Minorities Section)

Abstract

This paper is a critical review of the “crimmigration” literature with a focus on immigration enforcement technologies. I consider the surveillance systems deployed to identify and track immigrants once they are in the United States, as well as the border security technologies used to scrutinize migrants and travelers attempting to enter the country. The historical processes that animate immigration and immigration surveillance, including the interplay between race, racism, and resistance, are discussed, too. I pay special attention to the role of private actors in shaping the punitive contours of modern immigration enforcement and its constitutive technologies. I suggest that crimmigration scholars extend their analyses beyond detention centers to include other relevant non-state actors and institutions—namely, technology companies, defense contractors, and data brokers—to examine further how private, for-profit interests contribute to the expansion and intensification of immigration enforcement in the United States. I argue that leveraging concepts and methodologies developed in science and technology studies and economic sociology could be beneficial in this regard. Because race has been fundamental to the development of U.S. immigration laws, policies, discourses, and dynamics, I also suggest that modeling studies of immigration enforcement technologies after research on big data policing could help analysts incorporate racialization into their work.

Author

• Eyako Heh, Northwestern University