The Troubling Rise of Surveillance Capitalism in U.S. Immigration Enforcement

Ankle monitors and smartphone apps, new ways of surveilling immigrants on the rise in the United States, are far from a humane alternative to prison detention. Several reports, such as this one and this one, have documented the grave physical and psychological harm to immigrants subjected to these new surveillance devices. These devices also constitute a notable risk to a free society’s democratic norms as they expand the surveillance of individuals who are no real threat to their communities. Additionally, private companies that make and manage these devices are collecting large amounts of private data with little to no oversight while profiting from the expansion of the surveillance apparatus—an especially troubling development in the absence of public debate about any of this.

The Democratic Biden administration currently surveils the largest number of immigrants in U.S. history using ankle monitors and a smartphone app. According to TRAC, as of May 2022, almost 240,000 immigrants—the vast majority of whom have committed no crime other than possibly violating immigration laws—are subjected to so-called “Alternatives to Detention” or ATDs while they await the outcomes of their immigration proceedings. While known for its anti-immigrant policies, the Republican Trump administration monitored far fewer immigrants using ATDs, totaling about 86,000, which makes the current rise in their use even more surprising. The ATD most used is SmartLINK, a smartphone app using biometric facial comparison technology for immigrants’ regular check-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The second most popular one used is GPS or ankle bracelets, which provide ICE detailed information about an immigrant’s movements and whereabouts.

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This massive expansion of electronic monitoring of immigrants during the Biden administration has triggered little public debate, although it constitutes a significant change in the way ICE operates. BI Incorporated, the sole provider of ankle monitors and smartphone apps and now the third largest ICE contractor, has obtained ICE contracts worth almost $1 billion since 2015. While earlier brick and mortar private prison companies such as Core Civic and GEO Group profited from immigrants’ ICE detention, this digital surveillance company is now making lots of money off the backs of immigrants. In all, we are seeing a notable rise in what can be called “surveillance capitalism” in U.S. immigration enforcement.

What Is Surveillance Capitalism and Why Should We Care?

According to Shoshana Zuboff, a well-known scholar of the role of technology in society, surveillance capitalism refers to corporations claiming private human experiences in order to sell them as usable data to businesses and governments. The greater use of ATDs to monitor immigrants is an example of surveillance capitalism. The Biden administration, however, has not offered any public rationale for why it has relied on it so heavily in dealing with immigrants, almost tripling its use compared to the Trump administration.

Private prison companies have a stake in immigrant detention, though there hasn’t yet been much research on the role of other private interests in shaping the nation’s immigration policies. We know that the private prison industry has long lobbied Congress to ensure the continued use and expansion of immigration detention, at times making campaign contributions to influence how members of Congress vote on immigration legislation. We also know that the Department of Homeland Security’s detention and release decisions are influenced by the need to comply with a bed quota that benefits the private prison industry. These findings suggest multiple pathways through which private prison companies likely contributed to the growth in immigrant detention.

Take GEO Group, the largest private prison company in the United States in terms of revenue and the parent company of BI Incorporated. GEO Group gave $2.7 million in political contributions during the 2020 election cycle and spent more than $3 million in lobbying efforts in 2019 and 2020. Those contributions were followed by a large increase in detainees, from 14,000 in January 2021 to 24,000 in May 2022. Clearly, immigrants are used as commodities to boost the private prison industry’s bottom line, with elected officials responding to the political contributions they received, despite the high human costs. Yet, there isn’t much research on what has influenced the dramatic increase of electronic monitoring devices to surveil immigrants. This needs more attention because ATDs are troubling for several reasons.

Why Is Surveillance Capitalism Alarming?

Contrary to arguments that ATDs are more humane than detention, they result in physical and psychological harm to immigrants and pose a threat to democracy. The rise of surveillance capitalism in immigration enforcement means that the state is allowing corporations—i.e., BI Incorporated—to appropriate the human experiences of thousands of immigrants for a profit with little to no oversight despite the harms already documented.

A survey of 150 immigrants subjected to electronic ankle monitoring found that 90% of respondents experienced harm to their physical health, including aches, pains, and cramps. Additionally, 88% reported negative impacts on their mental health, including anxiety and sleep disruption. An alarming 12% of respondents reported thoughts of suicide due to the shackling, which was disproportionately used on Black immigrants. The SmartLink smartphone app also caused extraordinary harm, according to another report. “With SmartLink, it still felt like I had the shackle on; I just didn’t have it on physically now,” said one immigrant. The report concluded that SmartLink caused deep anxiety about ICE’s access to personal lives and a constant sense of being watched, particularly for people of color overwhelmingly targeted by law enforcement.

The rise of surveillance capitalism in immigration enforcement happens when ICE already has broad access to the data of many individuals, immigrants and citizens alike, a recent report showed. ICE has access to the driver’s license data of 74% of adults and tracks the movements of cars in cities that are home to 70% of adults in the United States. ICE is also able to automatically learn the new addresses of 74% of adults connected to gas, electricity, phone, or internet subscriptions in their homes in the United States.

Social theorists have long had concerns about surveillance as a social control tool waged by the state. Foucault wrote that in a disciplinary society, one becomes a docile body due to the presence, or threat of, constant surveillance, while Deleuze claimed that societies of control function based on personal information, big data, predictive analytics, and marketing. Deleuze even foresaw the irruption of electronic tracking. But now, corporations are increasingly dictating the tools the state uses for surveillance. The rights to privacy and knowledge have been usurped by a market powered by unilateral claims to others’ experiences and associated data, Zuboff argues. Corporations, and not the state, are behind this transformation.

A major concern of an app such as SmartLINK is how it expands the surveillance apparatus of ICE while handling—without clear rules or oversight—large amounts of data collected from immigrants. “We have no transparency into how they’re using the data and what they’re doing with it,” advocate Jacinta González said. “I both don’t trust ICE with that information, and I don’t trust a private company with it.” She added that biometrics is a growing industry, so nothing is stopping BI Incorporated from selling their database to another company.

This shows that surveillance is a tool of social control that now encompasses more individuals than ever before. As a result, as a society we become less free, which should be a concern to everyone. Now is the time for public debate about how surveillance capitalism is shaping immigration enforcement in the United States, as well as to consider new policies and practices that treat immigrants with the dignity and respect they deserve.

About the Author

Maurizio Guerrero is a second-year student in the International Migration Studies MA program at the CUNY Graduate Center.