The invisible borders
When we think of borders, we tend to think of increasingly fortified physical spaces with fences, razor wire, and the presence of police and military forces on both sides. While internal borders within the Schengen Area have been disappearing, external borders have become increasingly impenetrable and harmful. Between 2014 and 2022, the total length of fences on the EU's external borders increased from 315 km to 2,048 km. To give you an idea, the infamous "Trump wall" is 900 km long.
But the most effective, and therefore the most real, borders are those that are invisible. The first ones were made of paper. On the one hand, the invention of the passport and the visa limited both departures from one's own country and arrivals to a new one. This is how the introduction of visas for Moroccan citizens in 1992 effectively closed Spain's southern border overnight. On the other hand, residence permits and citizenship imposed new borders for those who had already arrived.
In recent years, this increasing invisibility of the border has been accompanied by a progressive decoupling between the real and the geographical border. The real border has shifted inward, creating spaces within national territory that legally remain outside its boundaries, that is, beyond the reach of its own laws. The first to do so were the Australians, who shifted the legal border to exclude prison islands like Nauru. But above all, the border has shifted outward, with the externalization of detention and deportation policies in countries like Morocco, Libya, and Mauritania.
In this context, we must add the increasing use of digital technologies, including thermal cameras, AI-powered drones, laser illuminators, biometric tools, and large databases. While the incorporation of these technologies has been justified in terms of efficiency and control, and in some cases they are fundamental to rescue operations, they have also generated considerable concern.
The first criticism concerns the violation of fundamental rights. For example, various journalistic investigations have revealed how the European Union's border management agency uses these technologies. (Frontex has been instrumental in carrying out the summary returns at sea, brutally and illegally conducted by the Greek government. The invasive practice of extracting personal data from migrants' mobile phones is also well-known, and this data has sometimes been used against them in asylum applications. Another common complaint is how the creation of large databases and the management of aid through automated algorithms, including by international humanitarian organizations such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), can lead to unfair exclusions.
The second criticism, which is very well captured in the study by the PorCausa organization and the Centre Delàs, has focused on the surveillance industry. From this perspective, it has been denounced that border technology has fallen into the hands of private companies, which raises questions about who has access to the generated data and what is done with it. The privatization of this technology also implies introducing market logic into migration control policies. This has a clear consequence: since it is an industry that thrives on fear, it always needs to generate more in order to grow, regardless of the reality. The obsession with the border, therefore, also has an economic logic. Finally, this surveillance industry is part of a larger industry, the war industry, which unfolds globally with the proliferation of new conflicts but also extends surveillance inward, initially with the control of foreigners but gradually also (and there are numerous cases that demonstrate this) with the political control of nationals perceived as dissidents.
