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U.S. Border Patrol's Missing Migrant Program helps rescue migrants in distress, prevent migrant deaths, and recover human remains along the southwest border.

Border Patrol must submit annual reports to Congress on this issue, including data on migrant rescues and deaths. In April 2022, we found that Border Patrol hadn't collected, recorded, or reported to Congress complete data on migrant deaths.

“We’re working very closely with the organizations that are setting the requirements for meeting the future threats of counter drone, both air, ground and surface. We’re being encouraged to work with industry.” Powell explained that the CBP tries to incentivize cooperation among competitors to produce the most robust system with multiple capabilities.

Nevertheless, issues at the border are not only about unlawful activities, but also about people in need of help in one of the most inhospitable parts of the world.

Over the past decade, the “cult of irrelevance” in political science scholarship has been lamented by a growing chorus (Putnam 2003; Nye 2009; Walt 2009). Prominent scholars of international affairs have diagnosed the roots of the gap between academia and policymaking, made the case for why political science research is valuable for policymaking, and offered a number of ideas for enhancing the policy relevance of scholarship in international relations and comparative politics (Walt 2005,2011; Mead 2010; Van Evera 2010; Jentleson and Ratner 2011; Gallucci 2012; Avey and Desch 2014). Building on these insights, several initiatives have been formed in the attempt to “bridge the gap.”2 Many of the specific efforts put in place by these projects focus on providing scholars with the skills, platforms, and networks to better communicate the findings and implications of their research to the policymaking community, a necessary and worthwhile objective for a field in which theoretical debates, methodological training, and publishing norms tend more and more toward the abstract and esoteric. Yet enhancing communication between scholars and policymakers is only one component of bridging the gap between international affairs theory and practice. Another crucial component of this bridge is the generation of substantive research programs that are actually policy relevant—a challenge to which less concerted attention has been paid. The dual challenges of bridging the gap are especially acute for graduate students, a particular irony since many enter the discipline with the explicit hope of informing policy. In a field that has an admirable devotion to pedagogical self-reflection, strikingly little attention is paid to techniques for generating policy-relevant ideas for dissertation and other research topics. Although numerous articles and conference workshops are devoted to the importance of experiential and problem-based learning, especially through techniques of simulation that emulate policymaking processes (Loggins 2009; Butcher 2012; Glasgow 2012; Rothman 2012; DiCicco 2014), little has been written about the use of such techniques for generating and developing innovative research ideas. This article outlines an experiential and problem-based approach to developing a political science research program using scenario analysis. It focuses especially on illuminating the research generation and pedagogical benefits of this technique by describing the use of scenarios in the annual New Era Foreign Policy Conference (NEFPC), which brings together doctoral students of international and comparative affairs who share a demonstrated interest in policy-relevant scholarship.3 In the introductory section, the article outlines the practice of scenario analysis and considers the utility of the technique in political science. We argue that scenario analysis should be viewed as a tool to stimulate problem-based learning for doctoral students and discuss the broader scholarly benefits of using scenarios to help generate research ideas. The second section details the manner in which NEFPC deploys scenario analysis. The third section reflects upon some of the concrete scholarly benefits that have been realized from the scenario format. The fourth section offers insights on the pedagogical potential associated with using scenarios in the classroom across levels of study. A brief conclusion reflects on the importance of developing specific techniques to aid those who wish to generate political science scholarship of relevance to the policy world. What Are Scenarios and Why Use Them in Political Science? Scenario analysis is perceived most commonly as a technique for examining the robustness of strategy. It can immerse decision makers in future states that go beyond conventional extrapolations of current trends, preparing them to take advantage of unexpected opportunities and to protect themselves from adverse exogenous shocks. The global petroleum company Shell, a pioneer of the technique, characterizes scenario analysis as the art of considering “what if” questions about possible future worlds. Scenario analysis is thus typically seen as serving the purposes of corporate planning or as a policy tool to be used in combination with simulations of decision making. Yet scenario analysis is not inherently limited to these uses. This section provides a brief overview of the practice of scenario analysis and the motivations underpinning its uses. It then makes a case for the utility of the technique for political science scholarship and describes how the scenarios deployed at NEFPC were created. The Art of Scenario Analysis We characterize scenario analysis as the art of juxtaposing current trends in unexpected combinations in order to articulate surprising and yet plausible futures, often referred to as “alternative worlds.” Scenarios are thus explicitly not forecasts or projections based on linear extrapolations of contemporary patterns, and they are not hypothesis-based expert predictions. Nor should they be equated with simulations, which are best characterized as functional representations of real institutions or decision-making processes (Asal 2005). Instead, they are depictions of possible future states of the world, offered together with a narrative of the driving causal forces and potential exogenous shocks that could lead to those futures. Good scenarios thus rely on explicit causal propositions that, independent of one another, are plausible—yet, when combined, suggest surprising and sometimes controversial future worlds. For example, few predicted the dramatic fall in oil prices toward the end of 2014. Yet independent driving forces, such as the shale gas revolution in the United States, China’s slowing economic growth, and declining conflict in major Middle Eastern oil producers such as Libya, were all recognized secular trends that—combined with OPEC’s decision not to take concerted action as prices began to decline—came together in an unexpected way. While scenario analysis played a role in war gaming and strategic planning during the Cold War, the real antecedents of the contemporary practice are found in corporate futures studies of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Raskin et al. 2005). Scenario analysis was essentially initiated at Royal Dutch Shell in 1965, with the realization that the usual forecasting techniques and models were not capturing the rapidly changing environment in which the company operated (Wack 1985; Schwartz 1991). In particular, it had become evident that straight-line extrapolations of past global trends were inadequate for anticipating the evolving business environment. Shell-style scenario planning “helped break the habit, ingrained in most corporate planning, of assuming that the future will look much like the present” (Wilkinson and Kupers 2013, 4). Using scenario thinking, Shell anticipated the possibility of two Arab-induced oil shocks in the 1970s and hence was able to position itself for major disruptions in the global petroleum sector. Building on its corporate roots, scenario analysis has become a standard policymaking tool. For example, the Project on Forward Engagement advocates linking systematic foresight, which it defines as the disciplined analysis of alternative futures, to planning and feedback loops to better equip the United States to meet contemporary governance challenges (Fuerth 2011). Another prominent application of scenario thinking is found in the National Intelligence Council’s series of Global Trends reports, issued every four years to aid policymakers in anticipating and planning for future challenges. These reports present a handful of “alternative worlds” approximately twenty years into the future, carefully constructed on the basis of emerging global trends, risks, and opportunities, and intended to stimulate thinking about geopolitical change and its effects.4 As with corporate scenario analysis, the technique can be used in foreign policymaking for long-range general planning purposes as well as for anticipating and coping with more narrow and immediate challenges. An example of the latter is the German Marshall Fund’s EuroFutures project, which uses four scenarios to map the potential consequences of the Euro-area financial crisis (German Marshall Fund 2013). Several features make scenario analysis particularly useful for policymaking.5 Long-term global trends across a number of different realms—social, technological, environmental, economic, and political—combine in often-unexpected ways to produce unforeseen challenges. Yet the ability of decision makers to imagine, let alone prepare for, discontinuities in the policy realm is constrained by their existing mental models and maps. This limitation is exacerbated by well-known cognitive bias tendencies such as groupthink and confirmation bias (Jervis 1976; Janis 1982; Tetlock 2005). The power of scenarios lies in their ability to help individuals break out of conventional modes of thinking and analysis by introducing unusual combinations of trends and deliberate discontinuities in narratives about the future. Imagining alternative future worlds through a structured analytical process enables policymakers to envision and thereby adapt to something altogether different from the known present. Designing Scenarios for Political Science Inquiry The characteristics of scenario analysis that commend its use to policymakers also make it well suited to helping political scientists generate and develop policy-relevant research programs. Scenarios are essentially textured, plausible, and relevant stories that help us imagine how the future political-economic world could be different from the past in a manner that highlights policy challenges and opportunities. For example, terrorist organizations are a known threat that have captured the attention of the policy community, yet our responses to them tend to be linear and reactive. Scenarios that explore how seemingly unrelated vectors of change—the rise of a new peer competitor in the East that diverts strategic attention, volatile commodity prices that empower and disempower various state and nonstate actors in surprising ways, and the destabilizing effects of climate change or infectious disease pandemics—can be useful for illuminating the nature and limits of the terrorist threat in ways that may be missed by a narrower focus on recognized states and groups. By illuminating the potential strategic significance of specific and yet poorly understood opportunities and threats, scenario analysis helps to identify crucial gaps in our collective understanding of global politicaleconomic trends and dynamics. The notion of “exogeneity”—so prevalent in social science scholarship—applies to models of reality, not to reality itself. Very simply, scenario analysis can throw into sharp relief often-overlooked yet pressing questions in international affairs that demand focused investigation. Scenarios thus offer, in principle, an innovative tool for developing a political science research agenda. In practice, achieving this objective requires careful tailoring of the approach. The specific scenario analysis technique we outline below was designed and refined to provide a structured experiential process for generating problem-based research questions with contemporary international policy relevance.6 The first step in the process of creating the scenario set described here was to identify important causal forces in contemporary global affairs. Consensus was not the goal; on the contrary, some of these causal statements represented competing theories about global change (e.g., a resurgence of the nation-state vs. border-evading globalizing forces). A major principle underpinning the transformation of these causal drivers into possible future worlds was to “simplify, then exaggerate” them, before fleshing out the emerging story with more details.7 Thus, the contours of the future world were drawn first in the scenario, with details about the possible pathways to that point filled in second. It is entirely possible, indeed probable, that some of the causal claims that turned into parts of scenarios were exaggerated so much as to be implausible, and that an unavoidable degree of bias or our own form of groupthink went into construction of the scenarios. One of the great strengths of scenario analysis, however, is that the scenario discussions themselves, as described below, lay bare these especially implausible claims and systematic biases.8 An explicit methodological approach underlies the written scenarios themselves as well as the analytical process around them—that of case-centered, structured, focused comparison, intended especially to shed light on new causal mechanisms (George and Bennett 2005). The use of scenarios is similar to counterfactual analysis in that it modifies certain variables in a given situation in order to analyze the resulting effects (Fearon 1991). Whereas counterfactuals are traditionally retrospective in nature and explore events that did not actually occur in the context of known history, our scenarios are deliberately forward-looking and are designed to explore potential futures that could unfold. As such, counterfactual analysis is especially well suited to identifying how individual events might expand or shift the “funnel of choices” available to political actors and thus lead to different historical outcomes (Nye 2005, 68–69), while forward-looking scenario analysis can better illuminate surprising intersections and sociopolitical dynamics without the perceptual constraints imposed by fine-grained historical knowledge. We see scenarios as a complementary resource for exploring these dynamics in international affairs, rather than as a replacement for counterfactual analysis, historical case studies, or other methodological tools. In the scenario process developed for NEFPC, three distinct scenarios are employed, acting as cases for analytical comparison. Each scenario, as detailed below, includes a set of explicit “driving forces” which represent hypotheses about causal mechanisms worth investigating in evolving international affairs. The scenario analysis process itself employs templates (discussed further below) to serve as a graphical representation of a structured, focused investigation and thereby as the research tool for conducting case-centered comparative analysis (George and Bennett 2005). In essence, these templates articulate key observable implications within the alternative worlds of the scenarios and serve as a framework for capturing the data that emerge (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994). Finally, this structured, focused comparison serves as the basis for the cross-case session emerging from the scenario analysis that leads directly to the articulation of new research agendas. The scenario process described here has thus been carefully designed to offer some guidance to policy-oriented graduate students who are otherwise left to the relatively unstructured norms by which political science dissertation ideas are typically developed. The initial articulation of a dissertation project is generally an idiosyncratic and personal undertaking (Useem 1997; Rothman 2008), whereby students might choose topics based on their coursework, their own previous policy exposure, or the topics studied by their advisors. Research agendas are thus typically developed by looking for “puzzles” in existing research programs (Kuhn 1996). Doctoral students also, understandably, often choose topics that are particularly amenable to garnering research funding. Conventional grant programs typically base their funding priorities on extrapolations from what has been important in the recent past—leading to, for example, the prevalence of Japan and Soviet studies in the mid-1980s or terrorism studies in the 2000s—in the absence of any alternative method for identifying questions of likely future significance. The scenario approach to generating research ideas is grounded in the belief that these traditional approaches can be complemented by identifying questions likely to be of great empirical importance in the real world, even if these do not appear as puzzles in existing research programs or as clear extrapolations from past events. The scenarios analyzed at NEFPC envision alternative worlds that could develop in the medium (five to seven year) term and are designed to tease out issues scholars and policymakers may encounter in the relatively near future so that they can begin thinking critically about them now. This timeframe offers a period distant enough from the present as to avoid falling into current events analysis, but not so far into the future as to seem like science fiction. In imagining the worlds in which these scenarios might come to pass, participants learn strategies for avoiding failures of creativity and for overturning the assumptions that prevent scholars and analysts from anticipating and understanding the pivotal junctures that arise in international affairs.

I applaud all scholars who seek to construct an alternative to political realism as description of and prescription for international politics. Nevertheless, it seems to me that there is a considerable gap between practitioners and students of foreign policy on the one hand, and theologians and philosophers interested in ethics and politics on the other. To us empirical social scientists, and to officers, I dare say, such alternative modes of thinking about politics should seek certain criteria.(32) First, it should be rather consistent.(33) Second, it should be possible to check the theory on the phenomena with the corresponding, observable real world-phenomena.(34) Thus, the theory must principally be of such character that its basic assumptions and deductions can be refuted by empirical observations. Thirdly, it should be substantial.(35) I believe that Rolfsen`s “Ethics of vulnerability” (in contrast to his analysis of realism) meets the first and third criteria. He might argue that the second criterion is irrelevant, since his contribution primarily is in the field of ethics. But in that case, he supports Morgenthau`s assertions about the autonomy of the political, ethical and economic spheres of thought. In my view, Rolfsen has to accept criteria number two in order to present an alternative framework for thinking about security. In the social sciences, as well as in operational art, military theory and strategy, we construct theories that simplify complex reality. These devices then help us understand parts of more complex systems or processes. But in order to construct theories and hypothesis, we must make our assumptions explicit; that is, make them available and open to debate and refutation. Morgenthau did just that in his classical work Politics Among Nations. Although Morgenthau was overly ambitious, it is clear that his aim was to see what scope and limitations there was in the construction he called “A Realist Theory of International Politics”; The test by which such a theory must be judged is not a priori and abstract but empirical and pragmatic. The theory, in other words, must be judged not by some preconceived abstract principle or concept unrelated to reality, but by its purpose: to bring order and meaning to a mass of phenomena which without it would remain disconnected and unintelligible. It must meet a dual test, an empirical and a logical one(36) To me, as an officer with at least some training in the social sciences, theories that do not meet the criteria above remain purely theoretical constructions that cannot help us interpret our environment.(37) As Morgenthau stressed repeatedly, in the study of war and peace as empirical phenomena, we are forced to make assumptions about human behaviour and the system we call society. Against this, the scholar of ethics will argue that he is doing normative theory. But in that case, normative theory will still occupy its own sphere, distinct from empirical or descriptive theories and research. I am a strong supporter of debates on ethics and moral conduct both in politics and in the use of violence by military units as ordered by the modern state apparatus. Thus, Feltprestkorpset should continue to raise questions concerning both jus ad bellum and certainly concerning jus in bello.

In my previous post I showed that, notwithstanding the Neo-Malthusian worldview, human well-being has advanced globally since the start of industrialization more than two centuries ago, despite massive increases in population, consumption, affluence, and carbon dioxide emissions. In this post, I will focus on long-term trends in the U.S. for these and other indicators. Figure 1 shows that despite several-fold increases in the use of metals and synthetic organic chemicals, and emissions of CO2 stoked by increasing populations and affluence, life expectancy, the single best measure of human well-being, increased from 1900 to 2006 for the US. Figure 1 reiterates this point with respect to materials use. These figures indicate that since 1900, U.S. population has quadrupled, affluence has septupled, their product (GDP) has increased 30-fold, synthetic organic chemical use has increased 85-fold, metals use 14-fold, material use 25-fold, and CO2 emissions 8-fold. Yet life expectancy advanced from 47 to 78 years. Figure 2 shows that during the same period, 1900–2006, emissions of air pollution, represented by sulfur dioxide, waxed and waned. Food and water got safer, as indicated by the virtual elimination of deaths from gastrointestinal (GI) diseases between 1900 and 1970. Cropland, a measure of habitat converted to human uses — the single most important pressure on species, ecosystems, and biodiversity — was more or less unchanged from 1910 onward despite the increase in food demand. For the most part, life expectancy grew more or less steadily for the U.S., except for a brief plunge at the end of the First World War accentuated by the 1918-20 Spanish flu epidemic. As in the rest of the world, today’s U.S. population not only lives longer, it is also healthier. The disability rate for seniors declined 28 percent between 1982 and 2004/2005 and, despite quantum improvements in diagnostic tools, major diseases (e.g., cancer, and heart and respiratory diseases) now occur 8–11 years later than a century ago. Consistent with this, data for New York City indicate that — despite a population increase from 80,000 in 1800 to 3.4 million in 1900 and 8.0 million in 2000 and any associated increases in economic product, and chemical, fossil fuel and material use that, no doubt, occurred —crude mortality rates have declined more or less steadily since the 1860s (again except for the flu epidemic). Figures 3 and 4 show, once again, that whatever health-related problems accompanied economic development, technological change, material, chemical and fossil fuel consumption, and population growth, they were overwhelmed by the health-related benefits associated with industrialization and modern economic growth. This does not mean that fossil fuel, chemical and material consumption have zero impact, but it means that overall benefits have markedly outweighed costs. The reductions in rates of deaths and diseases since at least 1900 in the US, despite increased population, energy, and material and chemical use, belie the Neo-Malthusian worldview. The improvements in the human condition can be ascribed to broad dissemination (through education, public health systems, trade and commerce) of numerous new and improved technologies in agriculture, health and medicine supplemented through various ingenious advances in communications, information technology and other energy powered technologies (see here for additional details). The continual increase in life expectancy accompanied by the decline in disease during this period (as shown by Figure 2) indicates that the new technologies reduced risks by a greater amount than any risks that they may have created or exacerbated due to pollutants associated with greater consumption of materials, chemicals and energy, And this is one reason why the Neo-Malthusian vision comes up short. It dwells on the increases in risk that new technologies may create or aggravate but overlooks the larger — and usually more certain — risks that they would also eliminate or reduce. In other words, it focuses on the pixels, but misses the larger picture, despite pretensions to a holistic worldview.

Established by presidential decree in 2010, January is Human Trafficking Prevention Month. In name at least, preventing human trafficking is part of the federal government’s 3 P’s paradigm to address human trafficking through prosecution, protection, and prevention. While the name would suggest the 3P’s are equally important methods in the fight against trafficking, in reality the order reflects an implicit level of prioritization. Since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000), the U.S. response has focused overwhelmingly on the first P through a criminal justice response, with victim protection playing a secondary role in the government’s strategy. Prevention has never been a funding priority nor a central pillar in the response, making its titular role in this month’s campaign incongruous with the realities of U.S. policy. In line with the criminal justice focus, President Biden’s ’FY 2021 budget allocated $160 million to human trafficking investigations and prosecution efforts through the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. An additional $40 million was designated to fund the Enhanced Collaborative Model Task Force to Combat Human Trafficking program, which brings together state and local law enforcement and victim service partners. $87 million was earmarked for victim services funded through the Department of Justice and another $28 million was directed toward the Department of Health and Human Services to provide case management services and benefits for victims of trafficking along with support for the Human Trafficking Data Collection Project. The remaining funds – in the single digit millions – are allocated to prevention. Most prevention funding is allocated towards public outreach and awareness campaigns. Outreach is vital to connecting potential survivors with resources, but it is a reactive approach that depends on reaching individuals after they have been harmed. To date almost no U.S. government funds have gone towards primary prevention. Primary prevention is proactive and seeks to decrease vulnerability before trafficking occurs. Intervention versus Prevention What criminal justice, victim services, and outreach strategies all have in common is that they focus on intervention as opposed to prevention of human trafficking. Intervention refers to efforts to arrest traffickers and sex buyers, remove survivors from coercive living conditions, and victim services. Law enforcement operations may be successful in removing individuals and increasing the number of prosecutions. However, the interventionist model has resulted in a stratified and inconsistent response from law enforcement. Those from BIPOC, immigrant, and LGBTQIA+ communities or trafficked into other labor sectors are often overlooked, or worse harmed by antitrafficking policies. The focus on interventionist, criminal justice solutions in state and federal policy fails to address the conditions that contribute to human trafficking. As I oft heard repeated by advocates and law enforcement officers alike during my most recent ethnographic research, “You can’t arrest your way out of trafficking.” It is not possible to end trafficking without ending the intersectional oppressions that create vulnerability. Public Health Approach to Trafficking A public health approach to trafficking moves “upstream” to identify and intervene at the level of root causes. The goal is to prevent human trafficking by addressing structural violence. Structural violence includes how the effects of racism and income inequality accumulate over time, increasing the risk that a person will be trafficked. The same structural conditions also increase the likelihood of perpetrating trafficking, as those charged with trafficking often come from the same communities as survivors. Reducing structural vulnerability at large also lessens the tendency to see exploiting others as a path to success. My research with survivors revealed the social determinants that arise before, during, and after trafficking. The vast majority were poor, experienced generational trauma, many were medically uninsured, sexually stigmatized on account of participation in commercial sex, more than half had histories of incarceration, and almost all of them lived with substance use disorder. What became clear in this research was that the structural problems that were present before trafficking persisted during and after the period of trafficking. One survivor explained how the challenges of withdrawal symptoms made it difficult for her to leave. As she put it, “Once your addiction comes into it … [you may want] to leave but you don’t want to leave because you’re going to get sick. It’s just like a really bad cycle.” In interviews, survivors, service providers, and law enforcement expressed remarkable agreement about the biggest challenges facing trafficking survivors. These challenges include lack of housing, treatment for substance use disorder, access to wraparound health care and transportation, and economic alternatives. As one program director noted, “the issues that have made [survivors] vulnerable to trafficking, like poverty, intergenerational violence, mental health, substance use … there is very little infrastructure or resources to help them resolve those issues.” Another trafficking advocate emphasized, “If you’re looking at it as a problem of poverty …you would never say, ‘This is a law enforcement-based problem, and we should send law enforcement in to solve it.’” Prioritizing Prevention of Human Trafficking The Biden Administration’s recently released National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking has placed a greater emphasis on prevention. The plan is novel in its comprehensive governmental approach that includes specific priority action steps for each of the 3 P’s. Notably, the plan indicated that advancing gender and racial equity, focusing on prevention of labor trafficking in global supply chains, and promoting safe, orderly, and humane migration are essential to the effort to combat trafficking. Yet wording within the plan is vague and emphasizes “reviewing” and “monitoring” already well documented deficiencies. Acknowledging these issues is an important first step, but ambitious initiatives need to be funded in future budget cycles to prioritize prevention. An expanded approach to prevention should incorporate interventions to disrupt patterns of exploitation before trafficking occurs and address factors that make survivors vulnerable to re-trafficking. A prevention-focused approach would: Expand affordable housing. Research has demonstrated a strong link between housing instability and trafficking. Increase safe housing options for survivors. A Housing-First model allows survivors the chance to obtain stable housing without preconditions such as sobriety or employment. Expand access to comprehensive, evidence-based treatment for substance use disorder. Such an approach would provide a full continuum of treatment and recovery services, integrate care for co-occurring physical and mental health conditions, and connect people with other social services. Provide expanded support services for at-risk, homeless, and LGBTQIA+ youth. Research shows that youth report practical needs including housing and job preparation and specialized needs like trauma-informed counseling and harm reduction programs. Address inequities and vulnerability in child protective services. Raising the age that youth “age out” of the foster care system and combatting abuse and violence within the system could decrease the risk of trafficking. Implement immigration reform to address the demand for cheap labor and to make temporary guestworker programs safer. Include impacted communities—trafficking survivors and people in the sex trades—in designing the policy response. The best approach to preventing trafficking may lie in policies that seem to be quite removed from the crime of trafficking. Expanding social welfare support, ensuring access to safe and affordable housing, reducing violence in families and the foster care system, and advancing safe migration would mean fewer individuals trafficked in the first place. Prevention can and should move to the center of federal and state responses to human trafficking.

The profitability of human trafficking and drug trafficking makes them a desirable pairing for transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) seeking to increase profits and market control. The International Labour Organization estimated that human trafficking was a $236 billion-a-year business in 2021. Actual illegal drug trade profits are largely unknown due to the trade’s illicit nature. However, a 2014 report from Global Financial Integrity, a Washington, DC-based think tank focusing on illicit financial flows, corruption, illicit trade, and money laundering, has estimated the global illegal drug market between $426 and $652 billion. Human trafficking and smuggling are complex crimes that affect people differently. While sometimes related, these are separate crimes. Emerging research suggests that disasters, like the border crisis, increase the risk of human trafficking. Numerous factors drive migration, including natural disasters, regional conflicts, poverty, political instability, human rights violations, and fluctuating immigration policies. Although the responsibility for immigration policy and enforcement lies with the federal government, state and local governments shoulder the burden for the stabilization of migrants remaining in the U.S. as they await immigration proceedings. State and local government efforts will be chiefly coordinated by emergency management personnel utilizing tactics similar to those for natural and human-caused disasters. They will assist social services agencies and their non-profit partners to quickly mobilize emergency migrant-serving facilities, programs, and services. Aside from the humanitarian lens, the policing lens has agencies shifting their “safeguarding” focus of respective communities to combat spillover violence associated with the border crisis: According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Wray at a March 2024 congressional hearing, “I would say this from an FBI perspective: we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border, and that includes drug trafficking. The FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people.” In March 2024, U.S. Border Patrol chief Jason Owens stated that the extraordinary flow of people into the U.S. is mainly driven by cartels, and they were setting “the rules of engagement” at the southern border. Transnational Drug Trafficking Aside from illicit drug trafficking, Mexican TCOs are aggressively increasing their involvement in corresponding crimes like extortion, human smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, and oil theft, according to the Congressional Research Service. Additionally, the level of violence associated with territorial control, trafficking routes, and criminal influence is increasing. According to the Global Risk Map, Mexico remains at “high risk,” crediting the enduring narco-war that threatens the balance of power and fuels upticks in violence. Over the past few decades, Mexican TCOs have fragmented the seven original Mexican cartels into twelve. In addition to large TCOs, approximately 200-400 smaller criminal organizations operate in Mexico. The fragmentation and evolution of criminal enterprises did not happen instantaneously. In 2018, instead of directly combating TCOs, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador adopted a policy addressing social conditions within the country, allowing these organizations to flourish. Unlike Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s, where dismantling the Medellin and Cali cartels led to less violence overall, dismantling the Mexican TCOs has fragmented criminal groups and encouraged widespread violence, largely due to Mexico’s governmental corruption and lack of enforcement. TCOs continue to be the greatest ongoing drug threat to the U.S., according to the DEA. Mexican TCOs control a majority of the U.S. illicit drug market, have well-established transportation routes, possess advanced technological and communication capabilities, and have strong affiliations with criminal groups inside the U.S. Their routine participation and involvement with affiliated crimes such as human smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, public corruption, and violence pose a serious threat to homeland security and further jeopardize public safety. The TCOs’ production and trafficking of fentanyl to the U.S. has fueled a continuing opioid crisis. The DEA reported that fentanyl was responsible for the deaths of 74,225 Americans in 2022 and almost 38,000 Americans in the first six months of 2023, making it the deadliest U.S. drug threat. TCOs currently control transportation routes inside Mexico, smuggling corridors, and distribution hubs in every U.S. state, as well as synthetic drug manufacturing facilities. Encrypted messaging applications and social media platforms facilitate these drug sales, making detection more challenging for law enforcement. TCOs can advertise drugs and cross-border human-smuggling services over social media platforms, communicate with co-conspirators and drug purchasers over encrypted applications, and receive payment via cash apps and cryptocurrency platforms on a single electronic mobile device. Transnational Human Trafficking The overwhelming number of undocumented, illegal migrants entering the U.S. is alarming. In 2023, Customs Border Patrol reported over 2.4 million encounters at the Southwest border and 3.2 million encounters nationwide. TCO violence and corruption, coupled with inadequate U.S. immigration policies and enforcement, have increased the number of asylum seekers entering the country. According to a 2022 report by the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, the Mexico to U.S. corridor is the largest in the world, with nearly 11 million people fleeing violence, extortion, armed clashes, or organized crime groups. Conflicts and competition for control between TCOs in violent states and battlegrounds – expanding into formerly peaceful areas – fuel a large exodus of people. Smugglers are capitalizing on opportunities for diversification and exploitation. Recruiting and Transport Common human trafficking recruitment methods include familial relationships, smuggling, and migration, specifically targeting migrants who originate in or pass through Mexico en route to the U.S. Migrants often have preexisting vulnerabilities and are unlikely to report trafficking crimes to law enforcement for reasons including the lack of self-identification, TCO retribution, deportation, and arrest. TCOs control the 2,000-mile U.S. Mexico-U.S. border which has escalated violent competition between groups over illicit markets and trafficking routes. The smugglers, often known as “foot guides,” “coyotes,” or “polleros,” recruit victims with promises of safe passage. Sometimes, victims are kidnapped en route to their destination and controlled with debt bondage, physical violence, and threats to family members. Smuggling endeavors are highly sophisticated. In 2021, TCOs earned an estimated $13 billion from human smuggling. Migrants agree to pay TCOs to travel from Southern or Central America to the U.S. Before the journey occurs, TCOs do the equivalent of a background check to learn about the migrants’ family members and friends and where they live. The family members or friends become “collateral” for the migrants. When the journey begins, TCOs require migrants to wear color-coded and serial-numbered wristbands that reflect how much money is outstanding and who they may have to work for once inside the U.S. During the trip, TCOs often increase the price or “piso” (tax), making it difficult for migrants to back out of deals or negotiate lower fees. Most migrants have some money, but not always enough to pay for the entire journey, with smuggling rates ranging from $3,000 to $60,000. At the border, TCOs remove the migrants’ wristbands and collect any remaining piso and smuggling fees. Migrants refusing to pay risk having someone kill their family members or friends. Any migrant who owes money must go to a work location in the U.S., where the migrant stays enslaved in debt bondage to the trafficker until the full amount is paid. Forced Labor in the U.S. Once in the U.S., large percentages of undocumented illegal migrants smuggled into the U.S. from TCOs fall prey to labor trafficking, which expands beyond laboring on a farm, cleaning hotels, doing construction, or working in factories for little or no wages. According to research conducted by one of the nation’s leading anti-trafficking organizations, Polaris, the National Human Trafficking Hotline identified that, between 2015-2018, 50% of persons trafficked for labor were from Latin America. Agriculture has the distinction of being the U.S. industry with the greatest number of reported immigrant victims of human trafficking. Latin American migrants are not the only victims of the gateway from smuggling to trafficking. Labor trafficking also occurs at legal and illegal marijuana farms, which may be operated by TCOs or Asian Criminal Organizations with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, who also function as money launderers. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, encounters with Chinese nationals have significantly increased over the past four years: 450 in FY2021, 2,176 in FY2022, 24,314 in FY2023, and 27,700 in the first 7 months of FY2024. Expanding Beyond Drug Trafficking Capitalizing on their existing drug routes, TCOs have expanded and diversified into human smuggling and, subsequently, human trafficking. Targeting migrants desperate to enter the U.S. and escape violence and economic poverty in their own countries, TCOs offer struggling migrants paid unauthorized transportation. Many migrants cannot pay the transportation cost and become the TCOs’ indentured servants. Repayment for this service takes many forms, primarily sex trafficking, labor trafficking, drug smuggling, and other associated criminal activity. Refusal to comply with TCO demands for trade-based repayment often means violence to migrants or their family members who remained in the country. Same Routes, More Commodities Unlike the Colombian cartels of the 1980s and 1990s, disrupting and dismantling Mexican TCOs have proved difficult because of corruption in the Mexican government and because arresting TCO leaders results in further fragmentation, cartel expansion, and extensive violence in geographic turf battles. TCOs control the areas along the Southwest border and exploit that control and long-established transportation routes. Capitalizing on their already prosperous business model for drug cargo, TCOs diversified into human smuggling using the same routes and procedures to transport human commodities. As an added benefit, desperate migrants rarely have the total funds required for their transportation, so TCOs accommodate them by forcing them into sex work, forced labor, drug trafficking, drug production, and associated criminal activities. Exploiting migrants provides an endless supply of TCO personnel and income not dependent on the manufacture and transportation of illicit narcotics. The diversification into human smuggling and trafficking is a simple business decision for TCOs who have no regard for human life and make no distinction between drugs and human commodities. Profits effectively triple with minimal effort while providing an endless supply of personnel and diversified illicit business opportunities should the narcotics trade become disrupted. With money as a prime motivation for these illegal activities, transnational crime is likely to increase until authorities challenge the high-profit, low-risk paradigm. Enacted or amended legislation is needed to address the immigration crisis, as well as training for law enforcement to recognize human trafficking when encountering migrants. U.S. Efforts to Combat Trafficking The decades-long war on drugs has had minimal progress in eradicating TCOs’ illicit businesses. The illegal drug market has transitioned from cocaine and heroin to even more deadly inorganic intoxicants such as methamphetamine, fentanyl, and xylazine. The major geographical drug threats are no longer South America for its cocaine production and the Middle East for its heroin but are geographically now Mexico and China. Drug-trafficking routes have evolved from private and commercial air carriers, drug mules and body carriers, and maritime routes via the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic and Pacific oceans to land routes along the Southwest border. Mexico’s entry into drug production and its partnership with China to obtain precursor chemicals has further fueled the U.S.’s deadly opioid epidemic. Despite its tremendous amount of demand for reduction programs, the U.S. remains the leading consumer of illicit narcotics globally. Traditional enforcement efforts used in the past to disrupt and dismantle TCOs have proven unsuccessful in Mexico and have only led to fragmentation, violence, and furtherance of territorial control. Implementing programs such as the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, and High-Intensity Financial Crimes Areas have had some level of success. However, TCO expansion and diversification into other criminal activities such as human smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, and fuel theft have boosted their profits. Open-border policies facilitate TCOs to conduct criminal activities within the U.S. and exploit migrants who embark on the cross-border smuggling journey. A Renewed and Expanded Call to Action Immigration reform, legislation with harsher penalties for the manufacture, possession, and distribution of synthetic drugs, and training drug enforcement organizations on human trafficking and smuggling investigative approaches can help combat TCOs. Collaborative and multifaceted steps are needed to address this nexus between drug and human trafficking, which include: Prevention of migrant smuggling – Aside from proactive investigations and disruptions of TCOs, other measures are key in addressing migrant smuggling, such as accurate information about smuggling risks for migrants to make educated decisions about their journeys. Some technology-based initiatives could disseminate information by sharing migrants’ experiences and the dangers of their migration journeys. Immigration reform – Current immigration policies provide opportunities for TCOs to victimize migrants. Migrants who involuntarily congregate along the Southwest border awaiting their eligibility to seek asylum may contemplate alternate avenues to U.S. entry, thus increasing their vulnerability to extortion and kidnapping. Prosecution of traffickers – The criminal justice approach or “all-crimes approach” to counter trafficking is critical for dismantling TCO trafficking networks, preventing trafficking, and protecting its victims. Utilization of an Enhanced Collaborative Model – Multidisciplinary teams should include law enforcement, prosecutors, medical staff, mental health staff, forensic interviewers, victim services specialists, advocates, housing personnel, treatment facilities, and personnel, nongovernmental organizations, and travel and transportation personnel, all with an understanding of the victim-centered approach. The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force enhances funding and training budgets to target high-level transnational, national, and regional criminal organizations. This task force provides investigative funding and intelligence-driven strategies, ensures U.S.-Mexico cooperation along the Southwest border, and offers an assortment of assets globally. Programs should not be reduced, but some of this funding should be reallocated from enforcement to education. The High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program is part of the National Drug Control Strategy to assist and coordinate law enforcement agencies by addressing drug threats, trafficking, and production in the U.S. This program recognizes the expansion of Mexican cartel activities. Providing training to regional High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas offices can help identify human trafficking victims during narcotics investigations. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is administered by the U.S. Department of Treasury to safeguard the U.S. financial system by combating money laundering and terrorist financing. This network supports law enforcement with expertise in narcotics money laundering and should utilize its current monitoring system for monetary commodities to flag financial transactions associated with the movement and sale of human commodities. The High-Intensity Financial Crimes Areas program complements the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program by focusing on the financial aspect of transnational crimes in Northern and Southern California, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Puerto Rico, South Florida, and along the Southwest border. Better integration across the enhanced multidisciplinary team approach would help combat the illicit human-drug trafficking enterprise across the U.S. The President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons is comprised of 20 federal agencies tasked with coordinating governmentwide efforts to combat human trafficking. Its primary focus is enforcing criminal and labor laws, victim-centered and trauma-informed assistance, data collection, education, public awareness, foreign aid, and diplomatic engagement. The Human Trafficking Institute’s 2022 Federal Human Trafficking Report states U.S. federal prosecutors concentrated 97% of trafficking prosecutions on sex trafficking and only 3% on forced labor cases. Conversely, experts estimate that 70% of persons trafficked are forced labor. Better agency-wide coordination would provide data-driven intelligence by improving the collection and sharing of statistical data pertaining to the types of prosecutions. Human trafficking task forces – The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations have limited resources applied to human trafficking task forces within their domestic field offices. Much like the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the establishment of human trafficking task forces at the 56 FBI field offices could better combat the drug trafficking nexus. Easily accessible, low-cost training and education in human trafficking recognition for the public, law enforcement, and the judicial system – Screening for human trafficking indicators is necessary any time law enforcement officials identify migrants during operations associated with migrant smuggling. Educating first responders in recognizing trafficking, using a trauma-informed approach, and employing investigative procedures is critical as they are likely to be the first to encounter victims and perpetrators. Additionally, educating judges, prosecutors, and jurors to better understand human trafficking crimes could result in more effective prosecutions. The illicit drug market, smuggling, and human trafficking at the Southwest border are profitable for TCOs. They reap enormous profits from drug trafficking, human smuggling, and human trafficking. The diversification into human commodities has expanded profits by exploiting migrants. TCOs will continue to utilize their long-established drug routes between the U.S. and Mexico to smuggle and force many into indentured servitude, which can result in debt bondage, sexual exploitation, labor trafficking, and forced criminality. Migrant smuggling and human trafficking are different but often overlap, which makes it imperative that policymakers, immigration officers, law enforcement, and organizations are conscious of the differences between them and the fluidity of moving from one to another. According to the Texas Border Czar Mike Banks, “Every state has really become a border state. Never in my career have I seen such large numbers entering the country illegally. And so, I think we should be worried about it.” Communities, resources, and emergency management agencies across every state, county, and city are strained. In 2021, the Federal Emergency Management Agency deployed to the Southwest border to assist with an incursion of migrants. In April 2024, the administration announced $300 million in grants through the Shelter and Services Program to support communities across the U.S. that are providing services to migrants. The U.S. must multilaterally prepare for the continued insurgency of migrants by utilizing disaster management best practices, continuing to aggressively target TCOs with anti-smuggling campaigns before migrants are recruited and reach the border, and combating smuggler misinformation so migrants are duly informed. Without additional action, the TCOs become stronger, more diversified, and harder to combat.

On the southwestern end of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s reservation, roughly 1 mile from a barbed-wire barricade marking Arizona’s border with the Mexican state of Sonora, Ofelia Rivas leads me to the base of a hill overlooking her home. A U.S. Border Patrol truck is parked roughly 200 yards upslope. A small black mast mounted with cameras and sensors is positioned on a trailer hitched to the truck. For Rivas, the Border Patrol’s monitoring of the reservation has been a grim aspect of everyday life. And that surveillance is about to become far more intrusive.¶ The vehicle is parked where U.S. Customs and Border Protection will soon construct a 160-foot surveillance tower capable of continuously monitoring every person and vehicle within a radius of up to 7.5 miles. The tower will be outfitted with high-definition cameras with night vision, thermal sensors, and ground-sweeping radar, all of which will feed real-time data to Border Patrol agents at a central operating station in Ajo, Arizona. The system will store an archive with the ability to rewind and track individuals’ movements across time — an ability known as “wide-area persistent surveillance.”¶ CBP plans 10 of these towers across the Tohono O’odham reservation, which spans an area roughly the size of Connecticut. Two will be located near residential areas, including Rivas’s neighborhood, which is home to about 50 people. To build them, CBP has entered a $26 million contract with the U.S. division of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest military company.¶ Tohono O’odham people used to move freely across these lands, Rivas says, but following years of harassment by Border Patrol agents, many are afraid to venture far from their homes.¶ “Now we won’t be able to go anywhere near here without the big U.S.-Israeli eyes monitoring us, watching our every move,” she says.¶ Fueled by the growing demonization of migrants, as well as ongoing fears of foreign terrorism, the U.S. borderlands have become laboratories for new systems of enforcement and control. Firsthand reporting, interviews, and a review of documents for this story provide a window into the high-tech surveillance apparatus CBP is building in the name of deterring illicit migration — and highlight how these same systems often end up targeting other marginalized populations as well as political dissidents.¶ The U.S. borderlands have become laboratories for new systems of enforcement and control.¶ The towers on Tohono O’odham land are part of a surge in wide-area persistent surveillance systems across the borderlands. Elbit Systems of America has already built 55 integrated fixed towers in southern Arizona, which company executives say cover 200 linear miles. According to information provided by a CBP spokesperson, the agency has also deployed 368 smaller surveillance towers, known as RVSS towers, in areas ranging from south of San Diego to the Rio Grande Valley, as well as along parts of the U.S.-Canadian border.¶ Civil liberties advocates and academics have pointed out the heightened abuses and increased migrant suffering that have resulted from the new state-of-the-art surveillance gear. According to Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, the spread of persistent surveillance technologies is particularly worrisome because they remove any limit on how much information police can gather on a person’s movements. “The border is the natural place for the government to start using them, since there is much more public support to deploy these sorts of intrusive technologies there,” he said.¶ In February, Congress allocated $100 million for integrated fixed towers and mobile surveillance systems, a sign that the towers may soon expand to new locations.¶ According to Bobby Brown, senior director of Customs and Border Protection at Elbit Systems of America, the company’s ultimate goal is to build a “layer” of electronic surveillance equipment across the entire perimeter of the U.S. “Over time, we’ll expand not only to the northern border, but to the ports and harbors across the country,” Brown said in an interview with The Intercept. “There’s a lot to be done.”¶ Building the Virtual Wall¶ Long before President Donald Trump called for the construction of a “big, beautiful wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border, there was the idea of a “virtual wall.” In 2006, Congress authorized the construction of 700 miles of fencing to be accompanied by a vast buildup of surveillance equipment and border guards in more remote terrain.¶ A key component of that effort, known as SBINet, was canceled after five years and more than $1 billion in expenditures. In the wake of that failure, CBP turned to Elbit, based in Haifa, Israel, awarding it a $145 million contract in 2014 to develop the integrated fixed towers in southern Arizona. In addition to fixed and mobile surveillance towers, other technology that CBP has acquired and deployed includes blimps outfitted with high-powered ground and air radar, sensors buried underground, and facial recognition software at ports of entry. CBP’s drone fleet has been described as the largest of any U.S. agency outside the Department of Defense.¶ The surveillance has had an acute impact on borderland communities, including on the Tohono O’odham reservation. Drones fly overhead, and motion sensors track foot traffic. CBP checkpoints monitor people traveling between the reservation and cities such as Tucson and Phoenix. Vehicle barriers, surveillance cameras, and trucks have appeared near burial grounds and on hilltops amid ancient saguaro forests, which are sacred to people on the reservation.¶ Nellie Jo David, a Tohono O’odham tribal member who is writing her dissertation on border security issues at the University of Arizona, says many younger people who have been forced by economic circumstances to work in nearby cities are returning home less and less, because they want to avoid the constant surveillance and harassment. “It’s especially taken a toll on our younger generations.”¶ Border militarism has been spreading worldwide owing to neoliberal economic policies, wars, and the onset of the climate crisis, all of which have contributed to the uprooting of increasingly large numbers of people, notes Reece Jones, a University of Hawaii-Manoa geography professor who studies borders and migration.¶ “The build-up started in the 1990s, but particularly after the declaration of the war on terror, funding began flowing into the border security sector in all these different places around the world,” Jones says. The number of fortified borders worldwide soared from 15 to 70 between 2000 and 2015, he added.¶ This militarization has, in turn, created new profit opportunities for technology and defense firms. In the U.S., leading companies with border security contracts include long-established contractors such as Lockheed Martin in addition to recent upstarts such as Anduril Industries, founded by tech mogul Palmer Luckey to feed the growing market for artificial intelligence and surveillance sensors — primarily in the borderlands.¶ Elbit Systems has frequently touted a major advantage over these competitors: the fact that its products are “field-proven” on Palestinians. The company built surveillance sensors for Israel’s separation barrier through the West Bank, which has been deemed illegal under international law, as well as around the Gaza Strip and on the northern border with Lebanon and Syria.¶ Elbit is also one of the main contractors on a new kind of underground wall, still under construction, around the blockaded Gaza Strip. Elbit’s drones patrol the Mediterranean Sea as part of the European Union’s bid to seal off access to migrants from North Africa, and it has provided its technologies to militaries in Australia, Africa, Asia, Central America, and South America.¶ Elbit’s contract to deploy IFTs on the Tohono O’odham reservation, which the company announced on June 26, follows several years of contentious debate within the tribal nation, with those living near tower construction sites voicing strident opposition. Two years ago, CBP released a study claiming that integrated fixed tower construction wouldn’t cause archaeological, environmental, or community harm. The agency also decreased the number of proposed towers and redesigned their bases so they wouldn’t extend underground. The Tohono O’odham legislative council unanimously approved the towers on March 22, citing the importance of helping Border Patrol agents stem cross-border drug trafficking.¶ In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Verlon Jose, then-tribal vice chair, said that many nation members calculated that the towers would help dissuade the federal government from building a border wall across their lands. The Tohono O’odham are “only as sovereign as the federal government allows us to be,” Jose said. A Border Patrol spokesperson told the newspaper, however, that the IFTs did not eliminate the need for a wall.¶ The Tohono O’odham Nation’s current chair and vice chair did not respond to requests for comment on this story.¶ In a statement to The Intercept, CBP spokesperson Meredith Mingledorff said Elbit’s integrated fixed towers enhance Border Patrol agents’ safety at a low cost. “IFTs are a ‘force multiplier’ that enables one agent to monitor various different sites remotely from a secure location,” she said. “They are low cost of maintenance and allow for greater efficiency of law enforcement operations, as we can better deploy resources depending on the type of incursion that is detected by the technology.”¶ Elbit’s Showcase¶ On a sweltering afternoon in early April, Elbit Systems of America executives showcased their latest border surveillance products at a company testing facility in Marana, Arizona, roughly 20 miles northwest of downtown Tucson. The event centered around a live demonstration of the IFT command and control system, known as TORCH. The system, which Elbit originally developed for the Israel Defense Forces, is used to monitor people’s movements along Israel’s border and separation walls. Now, it is also used by the Border Patrol at command centers across southern Arizona.¶ The event also served as a showcase for Elbit’s high-level political support. U.S. Sen. Martha McSally’s deputy state director was on hand, as was Ron Colburn, a former national deputy chief of the Border Patrol and current Elbit adviser. Colburn is perhaps best known for an appearance on Fox News last November defending the Border Patrol’s use of tear gas and pepper spray on migrant caravan participants near Tijuana, who had attempted to cross into the United States. Pepper spray “is natural,” Colburn said, before adding, “You could actually put it on your nachos and eat it.”¶ Joel Friederich, Elbit Systems of America’s vice president of public safety and homeland security, stood near a wall-sized monitor flanked by a pair of Elbit engineers as reporters and invited guests looked on. On the screen, a satellite map was populated with clusters of yellow and pink dots. Several smaller surrounding images displayed live feeds from the various video cameras and radar sensors adorning a demonstration tower on site. “This can be zoomed in for many, many miles,” Friederich explained.¶ An engineer clicked on one of the yellow dots, zooming in on one of the video feeds. Suddenly, several cars inching across U.S. Interstate 10 came distinctly into view. He zoomed in further, and the screen settled on a patch of shrubs adjacent to a roadway, close enough that the bright green, swaying tips of the creosote bushes were visible, though they were well over a mile away. The operating system uses artificial intelligence to assign an icon representing a human, vehicle, or animal, allowing Border Patrol agents to determine if something moving across the desert is a potential “item of interest,” Friederich noted. That item could include “anyone carrying a weapon or a backpack, or anyone in a large group.”¶ For Elbit, the holy grail of border surveillance is to ensure that no person can escape TORCH’s ability to track them across time and space in a given area. If one of the “items” ducks into a bush, the system can track them using a long-range infrared camera. For night operations, the towers have laser illuminators. A pick-up truck that can be remotely operated with a surveillance tower and 6-mile camera range is also able to feed data to TORCH in case someone ducks behind a mountain or into a ravine. The company is currently marketing the truck to CBP.¶ In 2016, Israel became the first country to deploy autonomous vehicles in a border area, which were also created by Elbit.¶ “The idea is that at the very moment you step near the border, Elbit will catch you. Something similar happens in Palestine.”¶ Leading Democrats have argued for the development of an ever-more sophisticated border surveillance state as an alternative to Trump’s border wall. “The positive, shall we say, almost technological wall that can be built is what we should be doing,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in January.¶ But for those crossing the border, the development of this surveillance apparatus has already taken a heavy toll. In January, a study published by researchers from the University of Arizona and Earlham College found that border surveillance towers have prompted migrants to cross along more rugged and circuitous pathways, leading to greater numbers of deaths from dehydration, exhaustion, and exposure.¶ Maren Mantovani, international relations coordinator of Stop the Wall, a Palestinian coalition that opposes Israel’s walls in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere, has tracked Elbit’s activities for nearly two decades. The company’s business success reflects the central role borders are playing in an emerging global surveillance society, she says. “Walls are not only a question of blocking people from moving, but they are also serving as borders or frontiers between where you enter the surveillance state,” she said. “The idea is that at the very moment you step near the border, Elbit will catch you. Something similar happens in Palestine.”¶ At the 13th annual Border Security Expo in San Antonio, Texas, two weeks prior to the event in Arizona, Friederich said in an interview with The Intercept that Elbit was preparing to bid on a contract to build integrated fixed towers on the U.S.-Canadian border and was eying opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley.¶ According to Brown, the Elbit senior director, the company’s border surveillance work will proceed indefinitely regardless of the construction of Trump’s border wall. “Border security has always been a three-legged stool — manpower, infrastructure, and technology,” he said. “Infrastructure being the wall. Technology being the towers, the mobile systems, the ground detection such as sensors. We’re going to keep busy no matter what.”¶ .

Nevertheless, when taken collectively, these complaints perhaps overstate the case and over the past 5 years or so in particular there have been some notable attempts at acknowledging and offering theoretically reflective accounts of the concept of the border of the state. Jackson, for example, has built upon the work of Hedley Bull and emphasized the normative role that state borders play in international life: ‘‘the sanctity and stability of inherited boundaries is a fundamental building block of international society and a principle behind which the vast majority of sovereign states rally’’ (Jackson 2000:333). On his view, borders between states not only delimit the spheres of national interests, security, and law but also shape rights and duties such as those relating to non-intervention (Jackson 2000:319). As such, borders are said to perform a key normative role by distinguishing between insider groups (members of international institutions such as the UN) and outsider groups (those who enjoy no legal existence as independent states) (Jackson 2000:333). A similar line of argument is pursued by Williams who also draws on Bull to argue that borders between states perform an important ethical function in world politics (Williams 2002:739). For Williams, state borders are ‘‘ubiquitous’’ and ‘‘embedded’’ in IR because they are a necessary facet of human existence: ‘‘The durability and depth of sedimentation of territorial borders as fences suggest that division, and division on a territorial basis, speaks to a deep-seated need of human identity and also in human ethics’’ (Williams 2003:39; emphasis added). On this view, borders between states are said to act as ‘‘fences between neighbours’’ in such a way that ‘‘tolerates diversity’’ instead of stifling difference (Williams 2003:39). Without borders, Williams claims, the international juridical–political system would not be able to ensure ‘‘state independence, limits on violence, sanctity of agreement or the stability of possession’’ (Williams 2002:739–740). Hence, he argues, ‘‘to remove, or even to re-conceptualize, territorial borders would mean the end of IR… requiring a shift in the conduct of politics on the planet that is unimaginable’’ (Williams 2003:27). However, Williams’ argument might be challenged on two grounds: first, that borders between states are not necessarily limits on but rather markers and even upholders of violence in political life; and, second, in any case, as we have already seen in the case of legal arguments deployed by the UN in defence of the Human Rights of detainees in Guanta´namo, planetary shifts in the conduct of politics occasioned by (or reflected in) the disaggregation of territorial limits and limits of law appear to be already well under way.

There are more than 5,000 different Indigenous Peoples around the world comprising 476 million people – around 6.2% of the global population. They are spread across more than 90 countries in every region and speak more than 4,000 languages.   Although their customs and cultures may differ, Indigenous Peoples experience the same harsh realities the world over. Their human rights are routinely violated by state authorities, and they face high levels of marginalization and discrimination.   Indigenous Peoples face eviction from the ancestral lands they have inhabited for generations, as well as restricted access to education, health care and housing. Indigenous human rights defenders are intimidated, attacked, and sometimes even killed, often with the support of the state.  Indigenous people are more likely to live in extreme poverty and suffer higher rates of landlessness, malnutrition and internal displacement than other groups. They often rank highest for prison inmates, illiteracy and unemployment, while their life expectancy is up to 20 years lower compared to non-Indigenous people.  What does it mean to be Indigenous? Indigenous Peoples can be identified according to certain characteristics: Most importantly, they self-identify as Indigenous Peoples. They share an ancestral link with those who inhabited a country or region before they were colonized or before other peoples became dominant. They have a strong link to particular territories and the surrounding natural resources. They have distinct social, economic or political systems, which they are resolved to maintain and reproduce. They have a distinct language, culture and beliefs. They are politically and socially marginalized. How can we use inclusive language when talking about indigenous peoples? The term ‘Indigenous Peoples’ is used in documents including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is because, under international human rights law, the word ‘peoples’ carries important legal significance when asserting the right to self-determination. The UN now uses the capitalized ‘Indigenous Peoples’ in response to demands from Indigenous representatives. It’s intended to act as a recognition of their status as peoples in international law and the right to self-determination. Other terms such as ‘communities’, ‘groups’ and ‘minorities’ are often used interchangeably with ‘Indigenous Peoples’. However, these alternatives must be used cautiously. State authorities may use alternative terms to deliberately deny or undermine the right to self-determination that the term ‘Indigenous Peoples’ confers. Alternative terms should only be used if the people in question use the term themselves. Aboriginal, First Nation, Native American or Adivasi may be the preferred umbrella terms used in some regions or contexts. When referring to a specific Indigenous People, it is most often best to use the name of that people. How are Indigenous Peoples’ human rights violated? Encroaching on their right to self-determination Although some Indigenous Peoples are self-governing, many are denied the right to freely choose their own government or political systems. This is despite the fact that Indigenous Peoples were governing themselves freely for thousands of years prior to the arrival of colonizers from the 15th century onwards. These rights fall under the umbrella term self-determination – a binding right in international law which refers to peoples freely determining their political status and pursuing their economic, social and cultural development. It is embedded in legal instruments such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, designed to address the impact of colonialism on Indigenous Peoples. Forced assimilation During the 19th and 20th centuries, Canada removed Indigenous children from their families and placed them in federally funded boarding schools, with the intent of assimilating them into broader Canadian society. At these “Indian Residential Schools”, they were not allowed to speak their languages or express their cultural heritage and iden tities. As a result, “Aboriginal people were expected to have ceased to exist as a distinct people with their own governments, cultures, and identities”. An estimated 150,000 First Nations children suffered abuse in these schools.  Indigenous children in Australia were also forced to assimilate into white culture and were placed in institutions where they suffered abuse and neglect. These children are known as the “Stolen Generations”.  Trespassing on their right to cultural lands Indigenous Peoples’ land ownership rights are also widely abused.   Under international law, states cannot relocate Indigenous Peoples without their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and without offering them adequate compensation. However, Indigenous Peoples’ lands – home to over 80% of our planet’s biodiversity and often rich in natural resources, such as oil, gas, and minerals – are routinely appropriated, sold, leased or simply plundered and polluted by governments and private companies. Indigenous land defenders face violence and even murder when they seek to protect their lands.  Many Indigenous Peoples have been uprooted from their land due to discriminatory policies or armed conflict. They are regularly cut off from resources and traditions that are vital to their identity, wellbeing and survival. Situations like this force them to flee their homes and move to towns and cities, or face greater marginalization, poverty, disease, violence and even extinction as a People.    Blocking access to healthcare and other public services Discrimination impacts Indigenous Peoples’ everyday life, restricting their rights to health care, education and housing.  Healthcare for Indigenous women From India to Peru, Indigenous women have higher rates of maternal mortality, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and are more likely to suffer violence.  Indigenous women are less likely to have access to healthcare facilities when pregnant because of discrimination and mistreatment; and so, they are more likely to die giving birth. For example, in Panama and Russia, Indigenous women are about six times more likely to die in childbirth than women from the non-Indigenous population. The birth rate for Amerindian adolescent girls is twice that of the general Guyanese population. In Kenya, Maasai women are twice as likely to have had no antenatal care, and in Namibia, San women are ten times more likely to give birth without skilled attendance.  Public health services Their marginalization also means that Indigenous Peoples are at greater risk during public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. A lack of access to health care and public information, as well as essential services including sanitation and clean water, means that Indigenous Peoples were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.  The effects were exacerbated by the failure of many states failed to properly consult with Indigenous Peoples when developing COVID-19 response plans. This meant that policies were not tailored to their specific needs. For example, public health information was often not provided in Indigenous languages.   Indigenous people are also more likely to get diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV.  Education An education gap between Indigenous children and their peers persists on a worldwide scale. Education systems often fail to cater to the particular needs of Indigenous Peoples, with obstacles including a lack teachers who speak Indigenous languages. This is compounded by Indigenous Peoples’ lower levels of access to computers and the internet – the so-called ‘digital divide’.  Case Study: Covid 19 Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, Indigenous Peoples had less access to education than non-Indigenous individuals because of long-term and systematic discrimination.   The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated these disparities. Indigenous children have less access to computers and the internet, meaning they were cut off from educational opportunities when the pandemic hit.   The pandemic magnified the impact of this ‘digital divide’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students even further, as schools closed their doors and turned to online learning. Many Indigenous children, especially in rural areas, lacked access to the devices and internet connection to access virtual classes. Further issues included high internet costs, low or non-existent reliable network or speed, and regular power cuts.  These impacts could have been avoided if governments accounted for the needs of Indigenous students in their Covid-19 response plans. In most countries, Indigenous Peoples were not included in the development of these plans. This failure to consult with marginalized people resulted in Indigenous Peoples being denied some of their most fundamental rights, including education and healthcare.    Although school closures have ended, the pandemic’s impacts on Indigenous children continue in the form of learning loss and dropouts.  

MARFA –– U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced last week that it will begin deploying rescue beacons throughout the Big Bend Sector to help locate undocumented immigrants in distress. The announcement comes as 32 migrants have died so far in this fiscal year within the Big Bend Sector while trying to cross into the United States, compared to seven in the last fiscal year.

“What we are trying to do is get those rescue beacons out there because this gives the individuals an opportunity to be able to look for help,” said Sector Chief Sean McGoffin at a press conference held on Friday.

But this year, as a rising number of migrants cross the sweltering desert of West Texas, where temperatures for almost 10 consecutive days have neared 110 degrees, Carrillo said he remains worried, though hopeful. So far, he and his office have found the remains of four people, down from around 20 last year.

“New technology, so far, has been very effective,” said Carrillo, a six-term sheriff in Culberson County, about 120 miles east of El Paso, which last year saw a record number of people dying in the rugged expanse of mountainous terrain of West Texas.

Washington — In an exclusive interview with CBS News, U.S. Border Patrol chief Jason Owens called the situation at the southern border a "national security threat," expressing concern about tens of thousands of migrants who have evaded apprehension and entered the country surreptitiously over the past five months. 

Owens said Border Patrol is "closing in" on recording one million apprehensions of migrants in between ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2024 fiscal year, which started in October. For the third consecutive year, his agency is on track to record two million apprehensions by the time the fiscal year ends at the end of September, Owens added.

Regardless of where you sit on the political and ideological spectrum, there is no denying the catastrophic crisis at our southern border. Whether you see it as a humanitarian, national security, or constitutional crisis, or all three rolled into one, it’s a colossal failure by any definition.

The Biden administration’s open-border policies have drawn five million illegal aliens from 160 different countries to our borders in just 18 months. The predictable result is a chaotic and deadly southern border where a complex set of threats are pouring into to the U.S. The situation has become so dangerous and untenable that a judge in Kinney County, Texas, formally declared the county was being invaded.

A broad outline of the Biden administration’s plan to solve the immigration crisis in America was unveiled this week, including 5,800 new border and immigration security officers, a new $4.7 billion Southwest Border Contingency Fund, and more emergency authority for the president to shut down the border when needed. Moving forward on these programs will “save lives and bring order to the border,” President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address last week.

Homeland Security’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request, released yesterday, includes $25.9 billion to “secure the border,” mostly through more government agents and more (and more capable) technology. Hidden in the fine print is the $6 billion tower surveillance program, one that has been in the works and growing since 2005 for years.

Their routine participation and involvement with affiliated crimes such as human smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, public corruption, and violence pose a serious threat to homeland security and further jeopardize public safety. The TCOs’ production and trafficking of fentanyl to the U.S. has fueled a continuing opioid crisis. The DEA reported that fentanyl was responsible for the deaths of 74,225 Americans in 2022 and almost 38,000 Americans in the first six months of 2023, making it the deadliest U.S. drug threat.

Every form of human trafficking is an atrocity, and every victim deserves to be rescued, rehabilitated, and cared for. One way in which the United States can help curb human trafficking is improving border security.

In the U.S., immigrants, especially immigrant women, make up the largest portion of trafficking victims. The Department of State estimates than in 2016, 57,700 victims had been trafficked into the U.S. annually. The true number is likely much larger and impossible to determine. In fiscal year 2021, there were nearly 2 million migrant apprehensions along the

Immigration reform, legislation with harsher penalties for the manufacture, possession, and distribution of synthetic drugs, and training drug enforcement organizations on human trafficking and smuggling investigative approaches can help combat TCOs. Collaborative and multifaceted steps are needed to address this nexus between drug and human trafficking, which include:

Prevention of migrant smuggling – Aside from proactive investigations and disruptions of TCOs, other measures are key in addressing migrant smuggling, such as accurate information about smuggling risks for migrants to make educated decisions about their journeys. Some technology-based initiatives could disseminate information by sharing migrants’ experiences and the dangers of their migration journeys.

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Advances in computing power, combined with rapid improvements in the quality of photo and video technology developed by the security industry over the last 15 years, have allowed facial recognition technology to develop and mature. Simply put, facial recognition software compares and matches facial images. This is done using an algorithm to compare a presented image with one or more “enrolled” images, after the images are converted to unique numerical versions readable by that specific system and compared for similarity. Facial recognition has three primary functions, with differing outputs: Verification: Verifying a person matches an enrolled image associated with their identity Output: An automated yes/no decision to authenticate Identification: Determining that an image matches one or more images enrolled in a database Output: Either an automated yes/no decision of some kind OR flagging a likely match for further review Investigation: Helping determine whether a matching image is in a database for an investigative purpose Output: A series of images from a database with the highest similarity scores are provided for review These functions have proven to be incredibly useful across many types of applications. The purposes can be vastly different from one another, presenting application-specific implementation considerations – from verifying an identity in a remote online transaction to physically opening a door for an authorized person to helping law enforcement investigators narrow down a set of possible matching photos. This technology is particularly important to the security field because it enhances capabilities of solutions like video security, access control and identity management systems that help our customers secure their facilities, employees and patrons against the threat of violence, theft or other harm. But use of facial recognition technology has benefited Americans in many other underpublicized ways – helping law enforcement find missing children, fight human trafficking, find dangerous criminals and bring sexual predators to justice. At the same time, it allows individuals to quickly and conveniently prove their identity to enter a venue, board a plane, perform online transactions and seamlessly access personalized experiences. Here are just a few of the successes. Law Enforcement Investigations Facial recognition software is used daily across the U.S. to assist in identifying and capturing the most violent criminals in our country and bringing justice and closure for victims. For over a decade, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have used it to compare facial images in thousands of investigations. Many public safety officials feel that this technology has become a game-changer for keeping our communities safe, pointing to instances where crimes would have never been solved or prevented without it. Use under appropriate policies and procedures has been endorsed by the nation’s leading law enforcement professional associations. In U.S. law enforcement, the technology serves as a tool to assist investigators in generating leads regarding the identity of an unknown person of interest in an image (such as a witness, victim, suspect or associate) where needed in a specific ongoing case. In this application, the technology does not confirm an identity or result in automated decisions. If a lead is developed, investigative techniques outside of facial comparison must used to find and confirm information needed to positively identify a person, and if a suspect, establish probable cause to make an arrest or obtain a search warrant. Under traditional methods, police seek to identify a person of interest manually by looking through hundreds of mugshots with victims, canvassing areas with photos or searching a database using vague suspect descriptions or names that could easily be criminal aliases or fraudulent identities. Facial recognition technology automates and improves the first step of identifying potentially matching photos from a database. Beyond simply improving an otherwise manual process, facial recognition contributes to more accurate identification. The National Institute of Science and Technology has found that forensic examiners performed best when supported by facial recognition technology and the most accurate performance resulted when these efforts are combined. Proper use of this technology is critical to protecting the innocent, as eyewitness identifications in criminal investigations are notoriously prone to error. According to the Innocence Project, mistaken eyewitness identifications have been the key factor in the vast majority of wrongful convictions in the U.S. later overturned. The following are reported successes across the U.S., representing just some of many examples. Exonerating the Innocent A Florida man falsely accused of vehicular homicide was exonerated only after facial recognition technology made available to public defenders was used to help identify and locate a key witness to the scene of a fatal crash, who confirmed the man was a passenger and not the driver of the vehicle, who was killed in the incident. A witness in a gang-related assault case in northern Virginia provided cell phone photos of the suspects to police detectives working the case. One of the photos of an unknown suspect was queried against regional booking and arrest photos and an investigative lead was developed. Upon further investigation and confirmation of the identity of the suspect, it was found that the individual was in jail in another jurisdiction at the time of the assault. Use of technology in this case helped quickly clear the individual and avoided unnecessary contact from law enforcement. Fighting Human Trafficking Local law enforcement investigators were working to identify a subject suspected of child sex trafficking in Fairfax County, Virginia. Using a photograph from social media of the person believed to be the suspect, a query against regional booking and arrest photos resulted in a lead, aiding in the progress of a critical child sex trafficking investigation. In California, a law enforcement officer saw a social media post about a missing child from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The officer used the Spotlight investigative tool to return a list of online sex ads featuring the girl. As reported in Wired, the girl who was rescued had been “sold for weeks,” and the officer’s actions initiated a process that “recovered and removed from the girl from trauma.” Use of facial recognition tools by Kansas law enforcement uncovered the largest forced labor trafficking case in U.S. history, all through identifying cases of driver’s license fraud in the state’s database. Bringing Child Sexual Predators to Justice A 15-year-old girl in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was sexually assaulted by an adult male she met online. Beyond seeing her assailant in person, the only additional information she had was from his online profile. Police were able to use facial recognition on one of the digital images to provide some potential matches from a state database, from which the victim was able to identify a likely match. After additional investigative work, authorities obtained a search warrant for the home of the identified suspect, who later admitted to the crime. A man accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl was apprehended in Oregon after a 16-year manhunt. Using facial recognition technology, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was able to identify the suspect after a positive match was found when the suspect sought to acquire a U.S. passport. Facial recognition technology was used to help locate and apprehend a convicted pedophile who had been on the run for 14 years, returning him to New Mexico to face justice. An investigative unit within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security used facial recognition technology to help U.K. authorities identify a Missouri man suspected of sexually exploiting an infant child, as part of an operation to solve thousands of cold cases. In 2019, New Jersey law enforcement arrested 19 online child predators following an investigation that was aided by facial recognition. Solving Other Sex Crimes In Maryland, an unknown subject went to the front door of a residence and began sexually stimulating himself in front of a security camera. The use of facial recognition by local police provided an investigative lead – a person that had conducted similar behavior in years prior. Upon further investigation, the case resulted in a confession by the suspect and criminal charges related to indecent exposure. In Montgomery County, Maryland, an unconscious person was reported. Responding officers found a disoriented pregnant female subject who was unable to recall anything from the past two days. Eventually, the female victim was able to recall potentially being drugged and later raped by an unknown suspect. Facial recognition was used to generate a lead from a photo of the suspect available from security cameras nearby. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested a 31-year-old man after he tried to rape and assault a woman on the subway at a station in midtown Manhattan. The NYPD facial recognition team utilized a video taken by a bystander to identify the man, based on a photo taken from a previous arrest. Catching a Suspected Subway Terrorist New York City Police Department (NYPD) detectives used facial recognition technology to identify a man who sparked terror by leaving a pair of rice cookers in the Fulton Street subway station. Detectives pulled still images of the suspect from security footage and used facial recognition software to compare them to NYPD’s arrest database. The system returned several hundred potential matches, and after multiple stages of review and confirmation using other methods, the suspect was identified in just one hour. Finding a Killer Targeting LGBTQ+ Victims Three members of the LGBTQ+ community were shot and killed by a man at a local home in Detroit, Michigan. The Detroit Police Department used facial recognition, in combination with other investigative tools, to help identify the suspect based on video images from a nearby gas station. Identifying Victims Following police response to a shooting/robbery in Maryland, and the victim could not be identified and remained in critical condition. Therefore, notification to his family had not been made. Images obtained from the victim’s cell phone screen were queried, and a lead was developed. Using other known images of the candidate, it was learned the candidate had a birthmark on his temple, this information was shared with investigating officers who confirmed that the birthmark was present. The investigators were then able to contact the victim’s family, and they responded to the hospital. While the victim ultimately succumbed to his injuries, quick work by investigators aided by facial recognition technology enabled the family to make it to the hospital before he passed. Responding to Health Emergencies Local law enforcement responded to a health emergency involving an individual at a local airport in College Park, Maryland, with no shirt or shoes, stating they wanted to “fly to outer space/the stars,” but the subject left the area before units arrived. An officer was able to locate the subject after subsequent calls from concerned citizens nearby; however, they had no identification and could not communicate coherently. An image was taken of the subject and queried, producing a potential matching female identity. At first, officers on the scene believed it was not a match because the individual was male. Upon further investigations the lead proved correct, as the transgender man’s identity was confirmed by his father, who had been contacted in another state. The man had reportedly not been the same since taking LSD the previous week. He was reunited with a family member and then taken to a local hospital for evaluation. An unknown person in Annapolis, Maryland was posting plans to commit suicide on open-source media. Reports were made to the police by concerned people who saw this post. Due to what was written, police believed suicide was eminent and attempted to identify this person using a still image from open sources. This image was used with facial recognition technology and generated a lead through a driver’s license photo. Through further investigation, the suicidal person was identified, and the police and a crisis team were sent to the person’s address. Police were able to locate the suicidal person, who was provided with assistance. Solving Violent Crime Local law enforcement investigated a violent assault on a public bus in Baltimore, Maryland. Images of the suspect and the incident were obtained through security camera footage from the bus. Information was disseminated to law enforcement partners seeking assistance with the case. A comparison was made with a law enforcement database, and an investigative lead was developed and provided to the investigating agency. Upon further investigation it led to the arrest of the assailant who was identified by the victim. In Annapolis, Maryland, Jarrod Ramos, later known as the “Capital Gazette Killer,” was angered by a story the Capital Gazette newspaper ran about him in 2011 and brought a lawsuit against the paper for defamation, which a judge later dismissed. In 2018, Ramos entered the newspaper’s headquarters in Annapolis, Maryland, with a shotgun and killed five employees, leaving two others critically injured. While local police took the suspected gunman into custody, he had no identification and would not speak to investigators, and a fingerprint database was not immediately returning any matches. Detectives obtained an image of Ramos and used facial recognition, which generated a lead in the case. Through further investigation, detectives were able to positively identify Ramos, and search warrants were conducted at his residence. He pleaded guilty in the case and was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences. Two suspects armed with guns walked into a liquor store in Towson, Maryland, and announced a robbery, taking aim at a 68-year-old clerk. The clerk, fearing for his life, pulled out a gun and shot one of the people robbing the store, who was later pronounced dead at the scene. The second person involved in the robbery escaped but was later identified after social media connections and image analysis using facial recognition led detectives to him. He was successfully prosecuted and convicted of attempted robbery. A Facebook user claimed on open-source media he was ready to attack and kill law enforcement “tyrants.” The same Facebook user also commented online on a police press release from Montgomery County, Maryland, suggesting he would use hydrofluoric acid containers above entry points to injure law enforcement. The subject later went on Facebook Live and announced his intent to livestream the execution of a law enforcement officer in Texas. Facial recognition was used by local police to quickly generate a lead from open-source photos. Through additional investigation, investigators were able to identify this individual and locate him in Texas. After a lengthy pursuit, he was arrested and charged with terrorist threats against an officer, evading detention with a vehicle and unlawfully carrying a weapon. In Las Vegas, Nevada, the murder of a man who was shot to death at an Airbnb was reportedly solved with the help of facial recognition as a “secondary tool” after images of the suspect were compared with a database of individuals arrested in the jurisdictions. According to the report, the use of the technology also aided the identification of the gunman in a shooting at a restaurant, an assailant who punched and fractured an individual’s skull at a car show, and those charged in several serious sexual assault cases. In Detroit, Michigan, a man pleaded guilty to robbing a 53-year-old female victim at gunpoint while she was walking home from a bus stop, taking her purse and book bag. An investigation had been conducted using facial recognition as an investigative tool to assist in his identification from images provided by local security cameras. Other cases were also solved in a similar manner, which involved an alleged suspect wanted in connection with two robberies and a nonfatal shooting, a suspect charged in connection to a police shooting, and a suspect who robbed a business wielding a knife. Fighting Organized Crime and Gang Violence Local law enforcement in Maryland requested assistance from a partner agency with a firearms trafficking investigation, providing an image of a suspect. The image was run against a law enforcement database, and a potential lead was developed. Upon further investigation, detectives positively identified the suspect and executed a search warrant that resulted in the seizure of drugs, guns and ammunition. A retailer reached out to law enforcement with information about an organized theft crew that had been targeting stores throughout Virginia, D.C. and Maryland. An image provided showed a male with unique tattoos on his neck and left hand. Facial recognition was used to generate a lead in the case. Upon further investigation, the individual was subsequently identified and charged. Local law enforcement conducted a homicide/gang investigation involving a violent group responsible for multiple homicides, drug distribution, kidnapping and robbery in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Digital images of persons of interest were obtained, and with the assistance of facial recognition, law enforcement was able to generate leads regarding three individuals involved. Through further investigation, individuals were positively identified, and probable cause was established to obtain a wiretap warrant. Though subsequent monitoring of communications, law enforcement was able to prevent at least three shootings, as well as interrupt a kidnapping. As a result of the investigation, over a dozen people were indicted and successfully prosecuted, multiple firearms were recovered, including an assault rifle, and drugs and a significant amount of U.S. currency were also seized. Solving Firearms Trafficking Local law enforcement in Maryland requested assistance with a firearms trafficking investigation in Prince George’s County, providing an image of a suspect. The image was run against a law enforcement database, and a potential lead was developed. Upon further investigation, detectives positively identified the suspect and executed a search warrant that resulted in the seizure of drugs, guns and ammunition. Solving Burglaries In Crownsville, Maryland, officers responded to a residential burglary captured on a home security camera. Using a facial image from the video, officers queried a law enforcement database using facial recognition, which provided a lead in the case. Upon further investigation, the person in the video was positively identified. He was charged and convicted of burglary and other charges. Fighting Identity Theft A string of fraudulent vehicle purchases in Montgomery County, Maryland, were carried out using information obtained via identity theft, harming both the identity victims and dealerships that lost property. The suspects had created false identification documents used to purchase the vehicles, combining their own image with the personally identifiable information from a victim. These images were queried, leads were developed and identities were confirmed through additional investigation, and five arrests were made. Some of the suspects were arrested when they arrived to pick up a vehicle, since by that time they had already provided their false identification with their true image. A man was caught with the help of facial recognition technology used by the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles, after the individual faked his own death and assumed his dead brother’s identity to create fraudulent passports and other identification documents and commit Social Security benefits fraud. The New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission‘s (MVC’s) “Operation Facial Scrub” has resulted in charges against hundreds of defendants with identity theft, forgery and document fraud offenses. Using facial recognition software, the division, together with the MVC and State Police, identified individuals who have applied for and obtained driver’s licenses under false names. Numerous defendants had extensive criminal records, including sex offender and DUI convictions. Several defendants possessed valid commercial driver’s licenses under the fraudulent names. This has included even uncovering a vehicle title fraud scheme by two of MVC’s own employees. Border Security The U.S. Department of Homeland Security uses facial recognition at over 200 international airports and dozens of land entries and seaports to verify travelers. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) matches passport photos to a database to verify the identity of thousands of travelers entering and leaving the U.S. each week. In addition to providing more convenience to travelers, it has proven to be an important tool for border security. As of March 2023, more than 1,800 individuals have been intercepted by CBP attempting to enter the U.S. at airports and the land border under a fraudulent identity, after detection using facial biometrics.[2] Beyond simply violating laws against illegal entry, passport fraud fuels many other types of crime with far-reaching harms, including human trafficking and drug smuggling. Health Care Facial recognition technology can be used in health care facilities in a variety of ways that protect the health and safety for patients and staff, including securing valuable lab equipment and providing touchless access so that only trained and authorized personnel can enter sensitive areas of a facility like “clean rooms” in order to eliminate risk of contamination. Many hospitals have already implemented facial recognition to eliminate the need for front-line health care workers to swipe badges or type in codes to verify their credentials. Reducing contact with potentially contaminated surfaces is key when staff must be on high alert around the spread of germs and disease. Additionally, facial recognition can be used to avoid patient misidentification in administering medicine and other treatments.[2] Such technologies also can perform dual security and hygienic functions in more common settings as well, providing touchless access to virtually any workspace and giving an added layer of hygienic security, as opposed to handing over a pass card or touching a fingerprint scanner.

Human trafficking is one of the most heinous crimes in the world. It strips victims of their dignity, freedom and basic human rights. The DOJ defines human trafficking as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or solicitation of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act or for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.

Human trafficking is particularly hard to stop because of the clandestine nature of the crime. In most cities, victims are forced underground and threatened with death if they voluntarily talk with the police. Victims rescued by police are often scared. They often feel trapped and unable to escape the invisible chains that bind them. They want out but are too afraid to say anything.