Push for advanced monitoring capabilities prompts alarm over privacy, profiling, and expanded domestic operations
The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency is seeking to significantly expand its surveillance powers, including acquiring artificial intelligence-enabled technologies that can detect people through walls. The move follows the approval of a federal budget bill that allocates more than USD 165 billion to immigration enforcement.
According to a presentation obtained by The Intercept, CBP is pursuing a suite of advanced surveillance tools for its Border Patrol Tactical Unit – a group that increasingly carries out not only counter-terrorism and hostage operations, but also routine deportation raids. Among the more contentious items on the agency’s wishlist is a system that would allow agents to identify individuals hidden within structures or rubble.
Other sought-after upgrades include satellite connectivity for border surveillance towers, enhanced night vision devices, improved radio communications, and small drones powered by AI capable of detection, tracking, and classification.
The document also outlines CBP’s ambition to use “advanced AI to identify and track suspicious activity in urban environments.” It notes that “city environments make it difficult to separate normal activity from suspicious activity,” suggesting a shift in focus from remote desert borderlands to densely populated neighbourhoods.
Spencer Reynolds, a former attorney with the Department of Homeland Security, expressed concern over the agency’s apparent expansion into more urban and domestic spaces. “Day by day, its activities appear less based on suspicion and more reliant on racial and ethnic profiling,” he told The Intercept. “References to operations in ‘dense residential areas’ are alarming in that they potentially signal planning for expanded operations or tracking in American neighbourhoods.”
Civil liberties advocates have repeatedly warned that CBP’s growing arsenal of surveillance tools could erode the boundary between immigration enforcement and domestic policing. Critics argue that the agency’s expanding remit risks entrenching discriminatory practices while raising the spectre of mass surveillance in American cities.
The CBP has not issued an official response to the revelations, but the disclosures are likely to fuel further debate about the scope and accountability of federal law enforcement agencies operating within the US interior.