AI and Racial Discrimination in U.S. Border Enforcement: Impacts on Black Migrants and Migrants of Color
“In recent years, the U.S. government has increasingly relied on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) systems to carry out its border enforcement and migration control efforts. As a result, migrants increasingly interact with various AI systems throughout their migration journey to the U.S., sometimes even unaware that they are doing so. AI systems surveil migrants attempting to flee life-threatening conditions along the border, determine who will be allowed to enter the country, inform immigration officials’ exercise of discretion in detention and deportation decisions, and increasingly determine who will be granted immigration relief. In short, the Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS’s”) use of AI systems profoundly impacts migrants. 1 While DHS and many other proponents of these AI systems make claims about their neutrality and efficiency, such narratives overlook the discriminatory impact these technologies have on migrants of color, particularly Black migrants. Their failure to recognize the ways that AI reflects racial biases of both its developers and deployers, as well as the biases in the data on which AI relies, exposes a critical gap in their discourse about AI.”
