Technology can be a force for good. But in the hands of border patrol agencies, it’s separating families, aiding violent detentions, and aggressively monitoring tens of thousands of migrants’ every move. Our government has spent millions criminalizing immigrants, and it has to stop. Tell Congress and President Biden: no more money for border surveillance.

President Biden publicly declared that “not another foot” of Trump’s border wall would be built along the U.S. Southern border. But his actions say otherwise. This week, Democrats signed off on $415.4 million for surveillance towers, drones, and ankle monitors—which, together, form a digital border wall capable of human rights abuses at a catastrophic scale.

Let’s be clear: a massive surveillance apparatus isn’t “gentler” than a physical wall. It causes serious physical and psychological harm, diverts migrants towards dangerous routes, and justifies warrantless searches. This invasive surveillance apparatus is what happens when our country’s anti-immigrant biases, and our obsession with policing, are force-multiplied by billions in tech company contracts.

We have to draw a line in the sand: no more taxpayer dollars can be spent on technologies whose sole purpose is to restrict, surveil, and imprison migrant communities.

This means:

• Biden must reject the digital border wall money in his forthcoming DHS budget request for FY 2023.

• Congress must prevent the future funding of surveillance tech for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); for example, in the FY 2023 DHS budget.

• Surveillance tech funding must be reinvested into education, housing, and healthcare projects in migrant and border communities.

• It’s difficult to fight back against surveillance expansion, but that makes it all the more important that we do. Surveillance that begins in targeted areas, like around the border, has historically expanded to harm more people across the country. In 2022, Congress must fund projects that support human lives, and tear down the digital border wall.
  

It’s difficult to fight back against surveillance expansion, but that makes it all the more important that we do. Surveillance that begins in targeted areas, like around the border, has historically expanded to harm more people across the country. In 2022, Congress must fund projects that support human lives, and tear down the digital border wall.