Sensors, Cameras, and the New ‘Normal’ in Clandestine Migration: How Undocumented Migrants Experience Surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Abstract

This paper presents findings from an exploratory qualitative study of the experiences and perceptions of undocumented (irregular) migrants to the United States with various forms of surveillance in the borderlands between the U.S. and Mexico. Based on fieldwork conducted primarily in a migrant shelter in Nogales, Mexico, we find that migrants generally have a fairly sophisticated understanding about U.S. Border Patrol surveillance and technology use and that they consciously engage in forms of resistance or avoidance. Heightened levels of border surveillance may be deterring a minority of migrants from attempting immediate future crossings, but most interviewees were undeterred in their desire to enter the U.S., preferring to find ways to avoid government surveillance. Furthermore, migrants exhibit a general lack of trust in the “promise” of technology to improve their circumstances and increase their safety during clandestine border-crossing—often due to fears that technology use makes them vulnerable to state surveillance, tracking, and arrest.

Security First: The New Right-Wing Government in Poland and its Policy towards Immigrants and Refugees

“…Clearly, migration movements cannot be stopped and the determination of people fleeing persecution, human rights violations and abject poverty and seeking refuge in the Global North knows no bounds. Shutting off legal migration channels by tightening migration laws compels people to resort to treacherous paths of illegal migration and leaves them at the mercy of criminals (Newell, Gomez and Guajardo 2017;Aas 2013;Belloni 2016;Gerard 2014). Poland has joined the ranks of countries that are introducing increasing restrictions on the coming refugees and exert substantial control over them, although neither the migrant situation (and a relatively low influx of refugees accompanied by a still relatively low number of migrants living in Poland), nor the so-called question of security justify such measures.…”

Examining the Global North Migration Policies: A “Push Out – Push Back” Approach to Forced Migration

“…More and more of them are also being created in Europe, which, in addition to physical barriers (as in Greece, Hungary or around Ceuta and Melilla – Spanish territories located in Africa), is also developing invisible borders by means of electronic surveillance systems using advanced technological means at sea borders (Cimadomo, ; Campesi, b) or land borders – a good example is the Polish–Ukrainian section of the EU external border equipped with an improved electronic surveillance system from the time when Poland joined the EU (IP/09/17; Klaus, : 526). Both of these systems work in synergy at the US–Mexico border (Newell et al., ; Walker, ).…”

An analysis of U.S. Custom and Border Protection’s tripartite Mexico border security policy

“…This has led the US to assert the need for a globalized security that would render national borders obsolete and pressure other international actors to collaborate. (Bigo, 2011, p. 47) Migrants especially, when approaching the Mexico-USA border, confront the ban-opticon and "stand at the threshold between two worlds" experiencing and "living one of the most intense, fragile and vulnerable moments" in their lives (Newell et al, 2017). As Boyce (2016) comments quoting a Border Patrol Chief that the US Border Patrol 90% surveillance effectiveness rate is "achievable as a strategic objective [through] […] more and more of the technology" (p. 258).…”