The Techno Dystopia Flourishing At The Border
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On May 11th I was with a group of people under the Paso del Norte Bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Suddenly, I realized that I didn't have the little things I needed to get across the bridge and back to El Paso, Texas, where I was at the 16th Annual Border Security Expo. Worse, just three hours before Section 42, Trump's pandemic-era expedited deportation policy, is due to expire. The media has gone wild about the issue, creating an undisclosed scenario, like the New York Post , that "troops" of "illegals" are headed for the border.
While I was looking for the coins, a woman came up to me and took 35 cents from her purse - how much is that! - and give me change. He then did it for our entire team. When I took the 20 pesos from my wallet to return the money, he clenched his fist and refused to accept the money.
Having lived, reported on, and traveled in Latin America for more than two decades, such generosity in no way surprises me, even if it contradicts much of the media coverage of what happened at this historic moment. Since Joe Biden took office in 2021, the Trump administration has been under increasing pressure to repeal Article 42. Now it is finally coming to pass, and hell is in sight.
But at an exhibition in El Paso that brought together key figures from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Immigration and Border Enforcement Service and the private sector, I learned that this kind of change has been taking place over the years and -- Don't be surprised! — The participating companies are planning to make huge profits.
Looking at the phasing out of Title 42 through the lens of the burgeoning frontier industrial complex has proven to be very interesting. Border officials and industry representatives continue to insist that there is a world of “cartels,” “countercriminals” and “criminals” across the border, no doubt this woman has changed me. At the time, I had heard many warnings that if the United States let its guard down, in short, there would be a "March on the Border."
However, when I later lived in this showroom, I learned about another type of wave that was not discussed either there or in the media. And I'm not just thinking about the additional National Guard members and other troops that the Biden administration and Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently sent to that border. I mean increasing the budget and increasing the record number of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts to ensure that this border remains one of the most militarized and controlled. Earth.
Robot dog at Expo
Earlier that day, I found myself in front of the Ghost Robotics booth. There sat the salesman and in front of him was a chrome robot dog on a puke-green carpet. Behind it was a large inscription: "A robot that listens to the world." He convinced potential customers that robot dogs could run nine miles per hour. The vendor at the adjacent booth, Persistent Systems, which claims to connect "soldiers, sensors, unmanned systems and cameras in a dynamic network," was not interested. (Incidentally, they were two of nearly 200 companies in the massive showroom.) "I would walk my dog every day," he says, referring to his living, breathing dogs.
The Ghost Robotics Vendor replied seriously, "Dogs will not be replaced!"
All around us, well-dressed company types, uniformed Border Patrol agents, and other law enforcement officers prowled the corridors, looking at aborted turret masts, Taser displays, Glock pistols, and face and iris scanners, part of a frontier industry that has grown steadily. . of two decades. .
To be honest, walking into this showroom is like stepping into a sci-fi novel, or maybe a crystal ball of our future frontier. The Israel Aerospace Industries flag on the mast commends the company "where courage meets technology." On the site, the company highlights its powerful MegaPop surveillance camera.
The slogan for Tower Solutions, which sells bulletproof vests, is typically down to earth (or do I mean sky high?): "Speed, Power, Stability, Sophistication." Armored Republic, which also sells bulletproof vests, displayed its religious fervour with a banner that read: "In the Republic there is no king but Christ." But Anduril, the new darling of the border—CBP's 11th contract in 2018—perhaps best represents the future of law enforcement under the banner of "autonomy for border security." Autonomous observation towers, autonomous drones and autonomous robot dogs should become a real future after Title 42, and the exhibit has been a crystal ball for the same period.
Reflecting the ghost robot's reaction, the Persistent Systems salesperson pointed at the robot dog and said, "You can arm these things and they can go to the barracks and smash Motherfaker's face."
"We have," replied the Ghost Robotics salesman. Does he want to arm a robot dog or punch someone in the face? I do not know.
Budget wave
Hours earlier, DHS Chief Information Officer Eric Heisen had assured industry officials that the agency had "the largest budget ever" in its 20-year history. A former Silicon Valley software engineer and program manager at Google, he came to Washington in 2014 to work at the Obama White House. The following year, he formed the digital services team at DHS and "never looked back". There are no Trumpian statements and hyperboles in its technocratic language. He's banking on numbers and a budget that offer some social justice (including mentioning programs to hire more women and assurances that even though DHS is developing invasive surveillance technologies, the department takes privacy issues very seriously).
At $29.8 billion, CBP/ICE's share of DHS's budget, which he estimates, is not only the largest, but also a $3 billion increase from 2022, including $2.7 billion for "new acquisitions across our southwest border". In other words, the future increase of the frontier was clearly foreseen.
For context, when Donald Trump took office in 2017, his CBP/ICE budget was $21.2 billion. As of 2020, this has grown to $25.4 billion. In other words, it took him four years to do what the Biden administration basically did in one year. The most recent jump was from $9.4 billion in 2005 to $12.4 billion in 2007, including funding for major projects such as the Safe Fence Act, which built about 650 miles of walls and barriers, SBInet, which aims to create a virtual wall. Border Patrol (with special thanks to Boeing Corp.) and Border Patrol, the biggest increase in hiring in three years of 8,000 officers.
But if that meant $3 billion in 2005-07, what will that mean in 2023 and beyond? Gone is the Trump-era audacity of this “great great wall.” Heisen's goal was to create an artificial intelligence task force within the Department of Homeland Security. One technocrat, Heisen spoke of using "the power of artificial intelligence to transform departmental missions," assuring industry observers that "I'm watching technology closely and I'm even more excited about the advancements in artificial intelligence this year than the first smartphone.
The robo dog in front of me perfectly captures the frontier in 2023 and the trends that go with it. After all, according to the seller, it can be monitored by an agent 33 miles away and apparently even—thank you, AI—makes its own decisions.
The seller showed me a video showing how such a trigger dog would work. It will use artificial intelligence technology to find the human form. A red box will appear around each detected person on the tablet screen in the agent's hand. In other words, I ask, can dogs think?
I remember Bing Chat, Microsoft's artificial intelligence search engine, famously professed her love for New York Times reporter Kevin Raj. The seller told me that someone using an Xbox-like controller would be able to target specific people on the dog detector. "But," he assured me, "this is the man who finally pulled the trigger."
Title 42 Surgr
In Mexico, when I visited the place where the Rio Grande River flows between the two countries, I encountered a small group of migrants camping by the side of the road. They have a fire full of kindling, in which they cook pots. A pregnant woman from Colombia told me they were sending food to other migrants who were passing by. "Oh," I asked, "so you sell food?" No, he replied, they did. First, they camped for several months near an immigration detention center in Ciudad Juarez, where a massive fire killed 40 people in March. Now they have reached the border. And they are still waiting, still hoping to apply for asylum themselves.
Outside where they were sitting, I could see a 20 foot high wall with barbed wire on top. There is nothing new about the hypermilitarized frontier. After all, construction in El Paso started 30 years ago in 1993 with Operation Hold the Line. A desert camo humvee sits beneath the US wall, with a few figures (border guard? National Guard?) standing nearby. The banks of the Rio Grande scream to the Mexican Federal Police on the other side.
The clock, said to be titled 42 Armageddon, is ticking as I cross the bridge back to El Paso, where a new barbed wire barrier was installed recently. There were several jeeps with CBP officers in blue uniforms and border guards in camouflage. Everyone was fully armed, as if they were going to war.
At the Border Security Exhibition, Heisen noted that the fear of expanding Title 42 had led to a safer border that is hard to imagine. 1,500 National Guard troops join the 2,500 already present, along with an additional 2,000 private security personnel and more than 1,000 volunteers from other agencies. Basically, he insisted, they had more control over whatever the media said.
In another discussion entitled "The State of the Border," Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz joked that he wanted to discuss his golf game, adding only, "Like all of America, political pundits and journalists are running around saying if you lose 42 titles the sky falls, it won't be In 32 my career year, we will process people in general.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also noted that the Title 8, pre-Title 42 enforcement program that DHS will now reinstate, "irregular immigration carries severe consequences, including a minimum five year detention for re-entry." And the possibility of repeating illegal crossings belongs in the criminal justice system." In addition, the Biden administration plans to aggressively expand the process, including implementing plans to extend the border south of the Darien Gap border between Colombia and Panama. It may even be that the US military will be stationed there to And on a repeated note at the Expo, Dan American officials demonstrated in various ways that above all, help from the corporate world will be needed.
Biden has already surpassed Trump on the border
Since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security 20 years ago, the Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies have awarded 113,276 contracts (yes, you read that right!), or an average of 5,664 contracts per year, 16 per day. . February 15, 2008 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $72.6 $ 72.6 $ 72.6 $ Curry statistics .
The 4,465 CBP and ICE contracts signed this year (worth a billion) will see it surpass the record 7.5 billion by 2022. 2022, 9909 audiobooks. il, an average of 27 per day, all of which means it could be the most important border enforcement officer.
recently , New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggested that President Biden should “get on top of Trump” and “do everything he can to secure the border like never before—more walls, more fences, more barriers, more troops, 82nd Airlift - जाया नाकोन नेन स्मान.
Since his first day in office, the president has emphasized technology over building walls and (not surprisingly) received more than Trump's 2020 campaign contributions from major corporations in frontier industries. And unlike the previous 42 Presidential Titles, the contractual policies, campaign contributions, and lobbying that would provide for this unlimited budget cap will not expire. SOMETIMES
on the edge of everything - and nothing
At 12, I am with Gabriela Sanchez at the border where the Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua borders meet near El Paso. Translate the description into the following languages: Belarusian using Google Translate? I asked him what he thought. He replied that he considered it a borderline ideal: something important and perhaps terrible would happen to us on a regular basis and then nothing would happen.
And as he aptly put it, the “growth” of cross-border migrants has actually declined – but, in a sense, things have continued to play out in ways that only look bad. perhaps 100 yards from where we were standing, in fact, we soon saw a man walking alone across the international border into the United States as if he were walking in the morning. Thirty seconds later, a truck pulled up. For a moment I thought it was a fluke, because that's the official border.
Then I saw a symbol next to it that included the US and Mexican flags. The truck slid to a stop near the man. A fat man in a gray uniform rushed to him when he saw his hand... Just then, a border patrol van with green stripes and अधे आसे. I was surprised—even though I shouldn't have been at the border security exhibit—to learn that the initial arrests appeared to be made by a private security firm. () an additional 2,000 private security agents have been created.)
Actually, this sight is more common. You were on this birthday 12 years ago. That arena of abnormality, however, includes the ongoing violence that is an intrinsic part of the modern border system, as geographer Rhys Jones argues in his book Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move . In the days following Title 42's death, an 8-year-old Honduran girl died in Border Patrol custody and a man was shot and killed by the Border Patrol. In April, only 11 ход у строевать находиться (in which it is impossible to carry enough water for a long time).
After Donald Trump, everything at the border has officially changed, but nothing has changed. স্ব ক্ক্ক গ্ট্লালান কায়াল ক্রান ক্যান কানান. And as Hysen said at the Border Expo meeting, the bigger the border budget is in 2023, the more it will be able to download into the stratosphere in 2024.
Nothing, nothing, not কল স্ব কাচুর ক্র্জী অধ্য়্যান—এন্তে ন্যান.