Abstract
Immigrants in the US exist under a very strict regime of surveillance. This regime is characterized by authentication systems, check-in points, registration, forms of mobility tracking, interoperable databases, and, at the militarized US-Mexico border, the scrutiny of facial-recognition technology, automatic watchtowers, and drones. However, this didn’t come about spontaneously. This paper attempts to outline the development of the immigration surveillance state as a generations-long bipartisan project. From the evolution of the military-industrial complex and technologies like the internet innovated to spy on national independence movements, to the proliferation of data collection made for global finance, the immigration surveillance state reveals a dense web of private beneficiaries who dictate its operation and the narrative surrounding it. Its long-term trajectory also illustrates another pattern, wherein the practices, technologies, and economic policies shaping surveillance at home are overwhelmingly developed in the context of imperialism and colonial domination. Few struggles illuminate this as transparently as that of the Palestinians, who are subjected to technologies and policies of colonization that are imported by American police and ICE. Indeed, there is a line that travels from repression and apartheid abroad, to the surveillance of immigrants, and eventually the surveillance and repression of political dissidents at home, as is now being witnessed with the case of Palestinian organizer Mahmoud Khalil. The incoming Trump Administration, and its connections to Elon Musk and the private tech sector, project vicious escalations not only to the surveillance of immigrants, but also to the repression of mass movements threatening the capitalist hegemony. However, this paper urges readers to look beyond individuals, and put on trial the entire system which brought these actors to power, which tends toward surveillance to preserve control over its subjects, and which time and again prioritizes profit over people’s needs.
Recommended Citation
Figueroa, Alexis
(2025)
"‘Immigrant Invaders,’ ‘Arab Terrorists,’ and ‘Leftist Subversives’:Surveillance State from Palestine to Mexico,"
Silicon Valley Sociological Review: Vol. 23, Article 6.
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/svsr/vol23/iss1/6