A/HRC/48/Add.xx organizations have opposed these border technologies because “they would exacerbate racial and ethnic inequality in policing and immigration enforcement, as well as curbing freedom of expression and the right to privacy.” 158 Other submissions also highlighted the operation of other autonomous surveillance AI infrastructure at the US-Mexico border, including drones designed to detect human presence and alert border enforcement officials. 159 As mentioned above, the current evidence is that so-called “smart” border technology forces ever more precarious journeys160, with a disproportionate impact on certain national origin, ethnic and racial groups. 55. In the US, the communications of detained immigrants and their families and friends are surveilled. 161 Under business model of the corporate providers of the technology, detained immigrant and their families “get convenience in the form of calls, video chats, voice mail messages, photo sharing and text messaging, while [the company’s] real clients,” immigration officials, get user data. 162 The web-based surveillance software offers government officials free “call-pattern analysis, relationship analysis and tools for data visualization.”163 56. Yet another facet of immigration surveillance involves social media screening. As of April 2019, the US State Department requires visa applicants to disclose their social media account information in the past five years from the time of application. 164 As the submission highlights, this expansive approach to social media screening is especially troubling because of the US immigration enforcement’s demonstrated track record of utilizing social media information in a manner that disproportionately harms members of minority racial, ethnic, and religious groups.165 DHS has already falsely accused Black and Latinx youth of gang membership by exploiting social media connections, resulting in their detention, deportation, and/or denial of immigration benefits.166 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), a constituent agency of DHS, frequently combs social media to support gang membership allegations.167 In one case, DHS evidenced its allegation with a Facebook photo of an immigrant youth wearing a Chicago Bulls hat. The immigration court denied him bond and rejected both his applications for asylum and permanent residence, deporting him to a country where he feared for his life,168 in violation of non-refoulement prohibitions under international law. 57. Moreover, social media screening has compounded the disproportionate risk of people belonging to or presumed to be of Muslim faith or Arab descent “by creating an infrastructure rife with mistaken inference and guilt-by-association.”169 For example, Customs and Border Protection, another constituent agency of DHS, denied a Palestinian college student entry to the country based on his friends’ Facebook posts expressing political views against the U.S., even though he did not post such views of his own.170 In addition to the direct burdens they place on non-citizens, the U.S. government’s expanded social media disclosure requirements foreseeably affect freedoms of speech and association. 58. Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), ICE’s investigative arm, had already been testing automated social media profiling as early as 2016,171 strengthening its open source 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 18 MRG, Submission. Mijente, Submission; Iván Chaar-López, Submission. Franciscans International, Submission. Mijente, Submission citing https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/magazine/ice-surveillancedeportation.htm. Ibid. Ibid. Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program (“HIRC”), Submission. HIRC, Submission. Ibid., citing https://www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/resources/deport_by_any_means_nec20180521.pdf. HIRC, Submission. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Mijente, Submission citing Sarah Lamdan, “When Westlaw Fuels ICE Surveillance: Legal Ethics in the Era of Big Data Policing” (2019).