January 28, 2025

President Trump was officially inaugurated on January 20th, 2025 for his second term. Almost immediately, he signed a slew of Executive Orders (51 so far!), many with grave impacts on migration and border enforcement.  

To ward of a so-called “dangerous invasion,” days after taking office Trump declared a national emergency on the US border with Mexico, saying that “America’s sovereignty is under attack” – even though border crossings and arrests plummeted by more that 80% in December 2024. This type of messaging is what our friends at The Border Chronicle aptly call the “new era of border theater,” amplifying lies and fears of migration, while also building on 30+ years of help from various Democratic administrations to paint people-on-the-move as threats, frauds, and terrorists. The ultimate ‘Other.’

And as MTM 2023 Fellow Veronica Martinez reports in her new blog post, Trump’s gutting of the maligned-but-needed CBP One app will render already vulnerable populations even more so.

Nogales, Mexico, 2022

What does this rhetoric have to do with surveillance and border tech? In order to operationalize Trump’s deportation machine, surveillance technologies already in use at the border and inland will expand, while private sector influence inside the Oval Office grows. The US executive orders will also have tremendous geopolitical repercussions. Under the threat of steep tariffs, after much back-and-forth Colombia agreed to accept deportees being returned on military planes. In further saber-rattling, will Trump succeed in annexing Greenland and make Canada the 51st state? Canada has already been heavily investing in border security to appease Washington, to the tune of $1.3 billion taxpayer dollars.

And while the long-awaited ceasefire in Gaza will hopefully mean a lasting end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, Israel has also escalated military operations and violence in the Occupied West Bank, a site of ubiquitous surveillance that continues unabated, tested on occupied communities and exported for sale around the world, including the US/Mexico border and the Mediterranean sea in Europe.

But there are also some promising moves. Mexico has launched an emergency app for people on the move to alert their families if they have been detained or deported. Municipalities and communities are openly opposing the Trump deportation machine and various Executive Orders are already the subject of legal challenges. After 15 months of brutality, Palestinians are returning home to northern Gaza.

MTM Fellow Mona Shtaya, The Palestine Laboratory Documentary

Listen to the Just Security podcast featuring MTM 2024 Fellow Judith Cabrera reflect on her work at the Border Line Crisis Center as the shelter prepares for Christmas gift exchange

Read some of our analysis on Just Security (Trump and the US), The Conversation (the Canadian border), and The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (yes, the group that operates the Doomsday Clock, which is looking like its increasingly inching towards midnight).

Watch journalist Antony Loewenstein’s new two-part documentary based on his award winning book The Palestine Laboratory for Al Jazeera, featuring MTM 2024 Fellow Mona Shtaya (Part 1) and MTM director Petra Molnar (Part 2).

Support local groups doing amazing work on the ground like:

• The Border Chronicle: original journalism and storytelling based in Tucson, Arizona

• Battalion Search And Rescue: search and rescue organization operating along the US-Mexico border aiding people in distress, documenting human remains in the Sonora, and educating the public

• I Have Rights: an NGO providing legal advice and sharing original research including their new report on Samos Island and the use of surveillance tech in Greek refugee camps

At the MTM, we have been busy! While continuing to border tech monitor developments around the world and authoring various pieces, we were also delighted to receive 510 applications (!) for our Fellowship Program.

Representing 7 languages and with applicants from all over the world, our current fellows will have their hands full as they comb through all the materials and choose the next 5 MTM Fellows.  Thank you to all who applied and stay tuned for the announcement in March 2025!

Check out MTM’s 2023 fellow Veronica Martinez’ blog post on the termination of the CBP One app: “The sudden end of CBP One leaves thousands of asylum seekers in limbo at the U.S. and Mexico border”.

Photo Credit: Veronica Martinez April 10, 2023

Person seeking asylum shows his mobile phone in which he has installed the CBP One app to request an appointment for an initial screening interview.

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The Migration and Technology Monitor
Incubated at the Refugee Law Lab, York University

*Note about language: Wherever possible, at the Migration and Technology Monitor, we use the term "people-on-the-move" or “people crossing borders” to expand the terminology commonly used when we discuss human migration and how migration management technologies are experienced. This deliberate use of more inclusive terminology does not seek to undermine the fact that refugees face particular vulnerabilities and often experience higher risks and harms as a result of migration management technologies. It simply highlights that at the end of the day there are people at the center of it all. Moreover, all of us may in one way or another be affected by migration management technologies as we cross borders and move across the world. While its greatest impact is on traditionally marginalized communities such as refugees and asylum seekers, the ecosystem of migration management technologies affects us all.