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< | Protecting Privacy at the Southern Border: Fighting Back Against Data-Driven Deportation |
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> | Resisting Data Driven Deportation in the Trump Era: Preserving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals |
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< | -- By SamuelPittman - 25 Oct 2024 |
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> | -- By SamuelPittman - 16 Dec 2024 |
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< | The Perfect Storm |
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> | When Privacy Clashes with Immigration Relief |
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< | Immigration is one of the most contentious issues in the upcoming Presidential Election. Today, about six in ten voters consider immigration critical to their voting calculus. Moreover, the case challenging the legality of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is currently under review by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. |
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> | Little has changed when it comes to U.S. immigration law. Congress has hardly moved a muscle on the issue of immigration since the passage of The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. |
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< | The Fifth Circuit serves Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and is arguably the most right-wing federal appellate court in the country. Although only serving three states, the Fifth Circuit has decided several cases involving issues such as: restricting the use and availability of mifepristone, whether perpetrators of domestic violence should be allowed to possess a firearm, and now is likely to strike down the legality of DACA. |
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> | However, the mechanisms the federal government employs to surveil and collect data on noncitizens have shifted. |
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< | Today, there are approximately 530,000 active DACA holders. However, there are about 3.6 million noncitizens residing in the United States who did not apply for DACA or aged into the program only after it stopped accepting new applicants. |
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> | The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election placed the issue of immigration at center stage. President-elect Trump is likely to embark on the largest deportation program in American history, articulated through his xenophobic campaign platform. |
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< | Thus, the legal uncertainty surrounding DACA, the upcoming 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, and the inability of Congress to legislate creates the perfect storm for policy surrounding immigration to be decided, shaped, and influenced by federal courts and the executive branch. United States immigration policy will undoubtedly be influenced by the results of our Presidential Election in 11 days. |
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> | A group of noncitizens at risk in the upcoming Trump era are those who came to the United States as a child: the 3.6 million Dreamers residing in the United States. 535,030 noncitizens hold active DACA status as of June 2024. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival is a form of administrative relief that protects eligible immigrants who came to the United States when they were children from deportation. However, his figure does not account for many who did not apply for DACA or aged into the program after it stopped accepting new applicants. Thus, the 530,000 DACA recipients make up only a minority of the total Dreamer population. |
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> | Throughout the semester, the privacy paradigm has been a focal point: anonymity, secrecy, and autonomy. |
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< | A Price Tag to Privacy: $960 Billion to $100 Billion |
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> | Mass deportation is not concocted out of thin air, it results from the exploitation of noncitizen’s data. Thus, if the paradigm of privacy is considered alongside mass deportation, the removal of noncitizens transforms into an issue of privacy. |
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< | Former President Trump has placed a spotlight on immigration, making the top priority of his Agenda 47: “Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion.” |
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> | Mass deportation as an immigration enforcement mechanism in the U.S. invokes questions concerning the legal status of DACA recipients, surveillance, and racial profiling. This essay aims to provide an answer. |
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< | Inside the sixteen-page RNC Platform, Former President Trump promises: “Republicans will secure the Border” and “deport Illegal Aliens.” As an enforcement mechanism, the former President vowed to “begin the largest deportation program in American history.” |
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> | United States immigration law is entering an inflection point due to the election of former President Trump. This paper argues that while expedited removal of noncitizens and data-driven deportation is likely to become the new norm in a second Trump presidency, an inquiry analyzing the utility of surveillance mechanisms regarding DACA illuminates pathways to resist data-driven deportation. |
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< | However, nowhere in his platform is the cost of pursuing mass deportations. In 2016, ICE released the average cost of transporting one deportee to their home country at $1,978. According to the American Immigration Council, if one million undocumented immigrants are deported per year, mass deportation would cost more than $960 billion over a decade. |
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> | Data of Noncitizens is For Sale, Can We Take It Off the Market? |
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< | Laying underneath the surface of a mass deportation effort is the role of surveillance and technology. |
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> | The surveillance of noncitizens who enter this country without admission provides an opportunity to examine the fundamental intersection between law, technology, and politics. |
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< | With the reality of a mass deportation-oriented immigration policy in the United States: questions surrounding surveillance, privacy, racial profiling, and due process become critical to examine. Yet, the role of the lawyer in defending vulnerable immigrant communities from surveillance becomes just as critical. |
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> | Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spies on most Americans. ICE has manufactured a large-scale surveillance system that reaches into the lives of millions of individuals in the United States: both noncitizens and U.S. citizens alike. |
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> | ICE possesses driver's license data for every three-out-of-four adults living in the U.S. ICE has scanned at least one-in-three driver's licenses with facial recognition technology. ICE has sidestepped state laws that prohibit States from sharing utility information with immigration enforcement authorities, by purchasing utility records through data brokers. |
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< | Examining the Intersection: Law, Politics, and Technology |
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> | ICE weaponizes technology against noncitizens to function as a tracking device. SmartLINK? , a GPS-enabled mobile application, is installed on mobile devices provided by ICE when a noncitizen awaits an immigration court date or a hearing for an asylum claim. These devices are often a lifeline for noncitizens who have traveled to the border with nothing on their backs. Essentially, these individuals rely on the mobile device to ensure they receive communications on their immigration court date. Yet, ICE is tracking their every movement. |
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> | ICE purchases consumer records from utility companies to locate people for deportation by contracting with Thomas Reuters. By contracting with third-party data brokers, ICE has purchased the personal data of millions of American citizens. The threat of harm to undocumented communities across the country is increasing. |
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The surveillance of noncitizens who enter this country without admission provides a unique opportunity to examine a fundamental intersection in the context of Law and the Internet Society: law, technology, and politics.
A study conducted by Boundless reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spies on a majority of Americans. In partnership with the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology, the report observed that ICE has created a large-scale surveillance system that reaches into the lives of millions of individuals in the United States: both noncitizens and U.S. citizens alike.
ICE has driver’s license data for three out of 4 adults living in the United States. ICE has scanned at least one in three adults’ driver’s licenses with face recognition technology. ICE has sidestepped state laws that prohibited the State from sharing utility information with immigration enforcement authorities, by purchasing utility records through data brokers.
ICE has expanded the use of SmartLink? , a GPS-enabled smartphone app, using the app as a tracking mechanism and compelling use of the app. SmartLink? is engineered by BI Inc., a subsidiary of the private prison company GEO Group.
ICE purchases consumer records from utility companies to locate people for deportation by contracting with Thomas Reuters. ICE interviews unaccompanied children to find and arrest their family members. |
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> | Congress's political inaction, expanding technological capabilities, and federal agency overreach have eroded the secrecy, anonymity, and autonomy of noncitizens. |
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< | By contracting with third-party data brokers, ICE has now purchased the personal data of millions of American citizens. The threat of harm to undocumented communities across the country is increasing. |
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> | Noncitizen's data is for sale. So much so, that court challenges have ensued. Can the purchase of data be stopped? |
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< | Congress's political inaction, expanding technological capabilities, and federal agency overreach are eroding privacy: secrecy, anonymity, and autonomy. |
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< | Never Far From Danger: Defending the Poultry Capital of the World |
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> | Can Surveillance Do All the Lifting? |
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< | The objective of a lawyer concerned about protecting the livelihood and privacy of immigrant communities under a second Trump presidency is best served through specificity.
Georgia has the fifth-largest number of people in ICE detention. Georgia is also the world’s largest processed poultry producer. Gainesville, Georgia is known as the Poultry Capital of the World and is home to poultry farms and plants. |
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> | DACA recipients warrant additional consideration when considering how parasitic surveillance mechanisms may be weaponized as a tool in the removal process. |
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< | In 2019, amid rumors of an imminent ICE raid on poultry plants, poultry workers fled Gainesville plants. Some people resorted to running through the woods to return home. |
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> | A significant question looms over analyzing the utility of surveillance mechanisms as applied to those with DACA status: “I trusted the government with my information when I applied for DACA. Can they use it to deport me?” |
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< | The intersection of law, politics, and technology has life-altering consequences for immigrant communities – placing those who are in America, trying their best to earn an honest living – at risk. |
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> | The vast majority of DACA recipients, unless they have a final order of removal, cannot be simply picked up by CBP or ICE and deported. They are entitled to proper notice and court proceedings conducted before an immigration judge, and these proceedings can take many years to adjudicate. This is a thin layer of protection as compared to noncitizens without DACA status.
One of the critical aspects of DACA is that it provides access to employment in the United States. If DACA is rescinded, current DACA recipients would lose their work authorization and all privileges that allow them to travel safely. |
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> | DACA adds an additional ripple in evaluating the privacy paradigm. While the surveillance mechanisms are evident questions remain. What information was collected from DACA recipients?
How might such information be used in the Trump era? Moreover, President-elect Trump recently said Trump now says he thinks so-called 'Dreamers' should be allowed to stay. Will Congress reach a solution? |
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< | Freeze to Death and ICE Will Find You – Is Freedom Possible? |
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Parasitic surveillance software further exacerbates already tragic circumstances. The internet society we live in already has achieved a total state of surveillance. Now, parasitic software is being weaponized to pursue an end goal of swift, mass deportation. It also has emboldened ICE to act upon the data they obtain through third-party contracts, placing immigrant workers in a constant state of fear of retaliation. |
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> | Putting a Face to Those with a Dream, Not Just Another Face in the Crowd |
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< | In 2021, two Gainesville poultry workers who were performing maintenance on the freezer died from asphyxiation and four more were killed as they tried to rescue their colleagues. |
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< | ICE had to be instructed to stay away from this tragedy. The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) demanded that ICE have no role whatsoever during the investigation of the 2021 chemical disaster. |
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Law school trains students to treat common law and legal doctrine as the gospel. However, it sidesteps the communities in which the law impacts the most. DACA recipients and the immigrant community are about to encounter the weaponization of parasitic surveillance against their privacy. |
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< | In the face of death, threat of retaliation, Congressional inaction, and federal agency possession of data of millions of citizens and non-citizens alike: is freedom possible? |
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> | Parasitic surveillance software further exacerbates already tragic circumstances. The internet society we live in already has achieved a total state of surveillance. Now, parasitic software is being weaponized to pursue an end goal of swift, mass deportation. |
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< | Fighting back against data-driven deportations and the consequent challenges ahead require me to return home. |
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> | Both parties in Washington have been unable to legislate on the issue of immigration. Lost in the conversation are the communities impacted by the inaction of our government. While parasitic software is a means, it doesn’t necessarily entail a solidified end. |
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I think the best route to improvement is tighter focus. The first two sections can be very tightly compressed. The discussion of ICE data-gathering on Americans should be more comprehensive: it should try to link all the available studies and journalists' reports that give specifics. The reader should feel that your piece condenses the best information available as of the election. That would be very valuable work.
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