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Speaker 2: Petro Monar. One of the themes throughout your book is
Speaker 2: that border security is big business. Tell us how big?
Speaker 3: So this is one of the central puzzle pieces to
Speaker 3: this story, for sure, and it's one that I think
Speaker 3: I didn't really grasp the magnitude of. You know, we're
Speaker 3: talking about a multi billion dollars border industrial complex, which
Speaker 3: is what some colleagues call it. It's been estimated to
Speaker 3: be around sixty eight to seventy billion dollars in the
Speaker 3: coming years. Because it is indeed big business. There's so
Speaker 3: many more innovations, technological interventions that are being proposed and
Speaker 3: rolled out at different borders around the world, and companies
Speaker 3: are cashing in. And again, this is not just the
Speaker 3: US border industrial complex. We're talking about a kind of
Speaker 3: global phenomenon where technologies are developed in one place, sold
Speaker 3: to a second place, three purpose for a third place.
Speaker 3: But overall, this kind of marketplace has grown up around
Speaker 3: the area and use of technology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's billions of dollars, and it's also, as you
Speaker 2: report it throughout the book, it's an arena for experimentation,
Speaker 2: what works and what doesn't and good gosh, they're trying
Speaker 2: all kinds of different technologies. You write about AI and
Speaker 2: how it's being used, share that with our listeners.
Speaker 3: Sure so, AI or artificial intelligence is kind of one
Speaker 3: of the latest manifestations is the way that technologies are
Speaker 3: playing out at the border. You know, here we're talking
Speaker 3: about things like things that sometimes can be a bit
Speaker 3: hard to write about or talk about, algorithms visa triaging,
Speaker 3: all sorts of machine learning interventions that have been introduced
Speaker 3: to streamline immigration and refuge processing around the world, but
Speaker 3: also other uses of AI. If I can just mention
Speaker 3: two projects that to me like really stick out in
Speaker 3: my mind, one being these proposed AI LIE detectors that
Speaker 3: the European Union was playing around with a few years
Speaker 3: ago through this project called Eye Border Control spelled small
Speaker 3: Eye Border CTRL. I love the way that these projects
Speaker 3: are named. Also, you know, you have your iPhone, your
Speaker 3: iPad and your eyeborder control, and this project was basically
Speaker 3: trying to use facial recognition or emotion recognition of your
Speaker 3: faith to make a determination about whether or not you're
Speaker 3: lying or not at the border and then being kind
Speaker 3: of processed for secondary screening for me as a refugee
Speaker 3: lawyer and as someone who used to represent people in court.
Speaker 3: This is hugely problematic, right, because how can an AI
Speaker 3: light detecture deal with differences in cross cultural communication, for example,
Speaker 3: or even someone being nervous and not making eye contact
Speaker 3: with you know, the avatar.
Speaker 4: On the computer.
Speaker 3: The humans struggle with these kind of determinations and making
Speaker 3: all sorts of assumptions about human behavior, or what about
Speaker 3: trauma and memory and the fact that we don't tell
Speaker 3: stories in a linear way anyways. Again, human decision makers
Speaker 3: struggle with this, and I've seen.
Speaker 4: This again and again. How can an AI light it texture.
Speaker 3: Even begins to get at some of these complexities of
Speaker 3: human storytelling. Not to mention right that the traditional lighte textors,
Speaker 3: the ones that go back and forth on paper, right
Speaker 3: that you see on CSI and other shows, they're not
Speaker 3: actually even admissible as evidence in a variety of jurisdictions
Speaker 3: around the world because we know that they are not accurate,
Speaker 3: and so why have we been playing around with AI
Speaker 3: in these spaces. Another use of AI, though, is also
Speaker 3: on the more kind of surveillance and security side of things,
Speaker 3: by importing it into tools like drones that scan the
Speaker 3: sky that are fully autonomous, different kinds of towers that
Speaker 3: use AI power surveillance, and even robodogs, which is something
Speaker 3: that the Department of Homeland Security announced when I was
Speaker 3: in the Sonora a few years ago. These kind of
Speaker 3: quadruped robotic machines that are military grade and that are
Speaker 3: now joining this arsenal of border technologies and relying on.
Speaker 4: AI to do it.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's really a kind of intiating and orwellian
Speaker 2: to have AI. I think you said, you wrote that
Speaker 2: you had these AI towers along the Sonora border Arizona
Speaker 2: and Mexico, and from those towers, AI is making decisions
Speaker 2: about who gets in and who doesn't, and also would
Speaker 2: be able to dispatch these robodogs that patrol the border.
Speaker 2: That's pretty spooky.
Speaker 4: It is, isn't it.
Speaker 3: There's something really kind of visceral about this kind of
Speaker 3: technology if it makes us uncomfortable, and I think it should,
Speaker 3: because it highlights again this kind of removal from the humans,
Speaker 3: not only the human decision maker, but also the person
Speaker 3: that's caught at the sharpest edges of this tech. And
Speaker 3: it really is creating this surveillance drag net that is
Speaker 3: sweeping across the border, and also making the border a
Speaker 3: lot wider than just that one geographic location, right, because
Speaker 3: I think we normally think of a border as a
Speaker 3: wall or a path to cross or something physical, right,
Speaker 3: But what technology is doing is pushing the border into
Speaker 3: the sky through drones, through surveillance and other types of technologies,
Speaker 3: but also widening it horizontally and geographically, because if you
Speaker 3: have all these towers that are against creating this kind
Speaker 3: of sweeping surveillance dragnest, it just disaggregates the border from
Speaker 3: its location, and it makes everything be a border. Your
Speaker 3: body becomes a border, right as somebody who's trying to
Speaker 3: cross these spaces.
Speaker 2: I think both of the political parties in this country
Speaker 2: are in favor of a higher high tech border, cyber
Speaker 2: border in essence greater use of that. Of course, Trump
Speaker 2: and the Republicans have favored a physical wall. I think
Speaker 2: the Biden folks have opted for the cyber border and
Speaker 2: those technologies, but both have their consequences. As you noted
Speaker 2: throughout the book, the cyber technology solutions to the border
Speaker 2: have forced people into even more dangerous situations and more
Speaker 2: of them end up dying as a result.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, absolutely, George. I mean, and that's the thing
Speaker 3: to remember, right, States and politicians say, well, we need
Speaker 3: smart borders, we need more technology to prevent people from coming,
Speaker 3: to deter them from even making their way to the
Speaker 3: United States. But again, time and again, studies have proven
Speaker 3: that people will continue to come, they will not be deterred.
Speaker 3: What endst that happens is that they will take more
Speaker 3: dangerous routes, leading to loss of life, as we've seen
Speaker 3: in the Sonora in Greece and other parts of Europe.
Speaker 2: You mentioned in the book about the use of biometrics,
Speaker 2: also a little spooky in the ways that this technology
Speaker 2: is being applied to border security people, especially because, as
Speaker 2: you note, the data that's collected ends up getting sold
Speaker 2: all over the place to government agencies, to other companies.
Speaker 4: Right, that's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, data is big business. Something that my friend Miam Jamal,
Speaker 3: who's a data rights activists in Kenya, Joey says, data
Speaker 3: is a new old and I think that's a really
Speaker 3: great way of thinking about it, because we need a
Speaker 3: lot more data to power so many of these technologies
Speaker 3: that have become part and parcel of our lives. And
Speaker 3: it's something that philosopher Shoshana Zubov also talks about as
Speaker 3: surveillance capitalism, the fact that we need more and more
Speaker 3: data to power the world that we are currently in,
Speaker 3: and biometrics are one manifestation of it, right, Biometrics that's
Speaker 3: basically collecting data from your body, so it seems like
Speaker 3: finger printing, iris scanning, even the.
Speaker 4: Way you walk.
Speaker 3: That can all form this kind of next manifestation of
Speaker 3: data gathering that we've seen, and for example, refugue camps
Speaker 3: are places where this happens a lot. Right, We see
Speaker 3: the importation of iris scanning technology, finger printing, and other
Speaker 3: types of biometrics that have become very normalized in humanitarian spaces,
Speaker 3: again under the guise of needing more data. More data
Speaker 3: is always better. That's the kind of animating conversation there.
Speaker 2: Give me your sense about before we go much further,
Speaker 2: about a physical wall here on the US border. It
Speaker 2: was kicked around four years ago, and there were proposals
Speaker 2: to build the across the entire border with Mexico. Give
Speaker 2: me your sense of whether you think that would work.
Speaker 2: Is it possible to secure the border in a physical sense.
Speaker 3: So I've seen large parts of the wall in Arizona
Speaker 3: where I've been working, and it's an interesting thing to witness.
Speaker 3: You know, it's this huge, haulking piece of metal. You
Speaker 3: can touch it, you can drive to it. It's rusty,
Speaker 3: and the rust will kind of stain your hand for
Speaker 3: the rest of the day as this kind of almost
Speaker 3: like reminder of its physicality. But often it also just ends,
Speaker 3: you know. I remember this particular moment in one piece
Speaker 3: of the wall in Arizona where you can drive up
Speaker 3: to it and kind of climb the hill and pop
Speaker 3: your head over to the other side. To me, that
Speaker 3: was such an important reminder that borders and walls are
Speaker 3: really also a social construct. Right. Sometimes believe politicians that say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: we're going to make this massive wall that's going to
Speaker 3: you know, run from post to coast, as if that
Speaker 3: would work.
Speaker 4: But they actually don't work.
Speaker 3: And if I can share an anecdote, I was actually
Speaker 3: recently in Arizona again, just last month, almost maybe three
Speaker 3: four weeks ago, and because I have this ethnographic apological
Speaker 3: hat on always, I was like, I'm going to drive
Speaker 3: down to the border wall and see what's changed since
Speaker 3: the last year that I was there. And I was
Speaker 3: there with my friends and journalist Todd Miller, who is
Speaker 3: an Arizona journalist doing really amazing work in this area.
Speaker 4: I urge used to check out his work too, And we.
Speaker 3: Were standing there by the wall trying to see, you know,
Speaker 3: some of the new smart wall additions and things that
Speaker 3: have been changing. And there was a surveillance tower in
Speaker 3: front of us as well that we could clearly see,
Speaker 3: and usually the Customs and Border Patrol trucks were rumbling by.
Speaker 3: And as we were looking towards the wall, some movement
Speaker 3: caught my eye and there was a young man who
Speaker 3: literally scaled the wall and jumped down in front of
Speaker 3: our eyes and kind of shook himself off and ran
Speaker 3: off into the neighborhood. And I've never seen it happen
Speaker 3: in such close proximity before, and it was literally right
Speaker 3: underneath a surveillance tower. I talked about this anecdote because to me, again,
Speaker 3: it shows that you can have all the security and
Speaker 3: all the surveillance in the world, but it doesn't actually
Speaker 3: work right. People who are desperate will find a way.
Speaker 4: To come anyways. So shouldn't then.
Speaker 3: The conversation be about, well, how do we make sure
Speaker 3: that we have a more fair and robust immigration system,
Speaker 3: How can we support people, How can we also then
Speaker 3: look at the root causes of migration right like we
Speaker 3: were talking about before, and actually have those tough conversations
Speaker 3: about supporting communities so that maybe people feel like they
Speaker 3: don't have to come in these ways.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Of course, the situation on along the US Mexican border
Speaker 2: is much different from what European countries are facing. And
Speaker 2: you know, you have refugees from Syria and Iraq, and
Speaker 2: as you write in the book, people coming from Turkey
Speaker 2: trying to get into the EU and move around and
Speaker 2: so much they can't build a physical wall that would
Speaker 2: work because of the ocean, and people come across on boats.
Speaker 2: There have been absolute tragedies that you document in your book.
Speaker 2: Talk a little bit about that that frontier and how
Speaker 2: wild it gets and how deadly it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean, there are definitely similarities to what happens
Speaker 3: along the US Mexico corridor. But Europe does have a
Speaker 3: very kind of unique manifestation. And all of this precisely
Speaker 3: because of the watery border, right, so, the Mediterranean Sea
Speaker 3: and the agency that separates Europe from the Middle East
Speaker 3: and North Africa, and people have been crossing into European
Speaker 3: territory for decades now, using usually small boats. And you know,
Speaker 3: during for example, the twenty fifteen twenty sixteen start of
Speaker 3: the Syria crisis and the rest you know, the war
Speaker 3: that was happening there, and of course numbers of people
Speaker 3: coming into Europe, a lot of people were landing on
Speaker 3: Greek islands, and then that resulted in the creation of.
Speaker 4: The so called hotspots quote unquote.
Speaker 3: Or islands that were then taking on large numbers of
Speaker 3: people and building these massive refugee camps as a result.
Speaker 4: But what has.
Speaker 3: Happened also, and there's been thousands of deaths every year
Speaker 3: documented people who take these treacherous routes. Oftentimes the boats
Speaker 3: either sink on their own or in really problematic instances,
Speaker 3: there's actually been documented cases where coastguards or even the
Speaker 3: European Border Force which is called frontechs have been implicated
Speaker 3: in what people sometimes called pushback operations. So instead of
Speaker 3: allowing people to land on European territory or even assisting
Speaker 3: them in search and rescue operations, they either leave them
Speaker 3: there to drown, or they push them back towards Libyan
Speaker 3: or North African territory. And there's unfortunately been thousands of
Speaker 3: deaths that have happened along the water waterfront of Europe too,
Speaker 3: not to mention the land borders as well, because there's
Speaker 3: also crossings that happen, you know, between the land border,
Speaker 3: for example, between Greece and Turkey, and other types of
Speaker 3: roots as well.
Speaker 2: You know, we have, as you document in the book
Speaker 2: as the walls of Eyes. There are these vigilante groups
Speaker 2: on the US Mexico border that patrol it. They grab
Speaker 2: a bunch of guns, they get their jeeps and patrol
Speaker 2: out there at night and in essence take the law
Speaker 2: in their own hands. That same thing happens in Europe too, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: You know we've heard, you know, similar instances of this
Speaker 3: happening along the Greek Turkey border, the land border that
Speaker 3: I just mentioned, and also along the Balkon route as
Speaker 3: people are trying to make their way into Germany, the
Speaker 3: Netherlands or other parts of northern and western Europe. So definitely,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a phenomenon that we've observed also with
Speaker 3: the kind of arising far right sentiments and this kind
Speaker 3: of anti migration movement that I think is a worldwide
Speaker 3: phenomenon for sure, where local communities feel like they have.
Speaker 4: To take matters into their own hands.
Speaker 2: The move to far right sentiment in Europe and in
Speaker 2: this country, I mean, to some degree, is fueled to
Speaker 2: a large extent by migration, by large numbers of people
Speaker 2: coming into the country, trying to get into the country,
Speaker 2: the same in Europe.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I would necessarily agree with that characterization,
Speaker 3: because of course migration maybe is a factor in these conversations,
Speaker 3: but I think in fact fueled buy politics and the
Speaker 3: weaponization of communities that have been marginalized for many, many years.
Speaker 3: I think migration is an easy scapegoat for politicians. This
Speaker 3: is something that we're seeing it again and again, not
Speaker 3: just in the US or Canada, but also in the EU.
Speaker 3: You just went through elections right at the European Parliament
Speaker 3: two or three weeks ago, and there was a massive
Speaker 3: swing to the right, for sure, and one of the
Speaker 3: key themes was kind of instrumentalizing or using migration as
Speaker 3: a way to swing voters to your side, right, but
Speaker 3: without actually looking at what people in Europe in this
Speaker 3: case need, right jobs, stability, answers to the environmental crisis.
Speaker 4: That's happening.
Speaker 3: It's just it's easier to blame migration, right, because it
Speaker 3: is something that a lot of people have very strong
Speaker 3: feelings about.
Speaker 2: You're calling from Germany, you're in Berlin. Can you give
Speaker 2: me a sense of what it's like there on the ground.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, if there are tendencies and we
Speaker 2: read about it every once in a while, that there
Speaker 2: are stories here about Germans leaning towards the far right
Speaker 2: and extremist groups rising. We know where that has led
Speaker 2: in German history before. It's not a good place, correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, And I mean this has been a trend
Speaker 3: for a few years now in Germany with the rise
Speaker 3: of the sort of neo far right parties, but around
Speaker 3: Europe as well. Greached another example other euro contentions to
Speaker 3: But I will also say, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of deep conversations that are also being had all along
Speaker 3: the political spectrum where you know, people are scared of
Speaker 3: the rise of the far right, and in a way
Speaker 3: it's sad that seemed to have to get to this point,
Speaker 3: but it also I think it's a hopeful time and
Speaker 3: it's a very generative time because people are having these
Speaker 3: conversations about well, this is scary, But how do we
Speaker 3: build a different world. How do we actually think about
Speaker 3: these things again from a community based perspective, from a
Speaker 3: person oriented perspective, how do we come together and try
Speaker 3: and push for a different way of governing or talking
Speaker 3: about these issues. I'm seeing that those frends as well,
Speaker 3: which is hopeful, you know.
Speaker 4: I think it can.
Speaker 3: Get very depressing, very fast doing this work and seeing
Speaker 3: the manifestations of it.
Speaker 4: But I will say there's also cause for hope.
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't heard that before. I haven't heard that
Speaker 2: from anyone, that there's cause for hope, because it's so
Speaker 2: it is a depressing issue. I think about the people
Speaker 2: that die out there and you will walk hundreds of
Speaker 2: miles and then they're turn away after they get here,
Speaker 2: or the people who die on boats trying to get
Speaker 2: into Europe, and gosh, these are heartbreaking stories and emotions.
Speaker 2: As I said at the beginning of our conversation, runs
Speaker 2: so hot on this issue. People who think we can't
Speaker 2: have a country without a border, and I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of sympathy for that position.
Speaker 3: You know, It's a position that I can definitely understand,
Speaker 3: especially given again the kind of competing crisis that we
Speaker 3: are all living through. I think it's also, though, it's
Speaker 3: time that we maybe think beyond some of these structures
Speaker 3: and these ideas that we kind of hold dear and
Speaker 3: have to ask why, right, Because borders are a social constructs.
Speaker 3: You know, They're not as immutable as we like to
Speaker 3: think they are. Right, and in North America in particular, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, borders have been drawn and re drawn many times.
Speaker 4: You around the world as well. I think it's important to.
Speaker 3: Not take even kind of concepts like this that seems
Speaker 3: so intractable as something that is static, you know, I
Speaker 3: do think we actually can rethink them. I'm thinking in
Speaker 3: particular of a recent book that came out by a
Speaker 3: colleague of mind, John Washington, called The Case for Open Borders.
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