Across the U.S., a surveillance system tracking the movements of tens of thousands of people seeking refuge or permanent residency in the U.S. is quietly but quickly expanding. The ankle monitor attached to Ssemanda’s leg is one piece of a program run by federal immigration officials known as “Alternatives to Detention,” (ATD) which places people in deportation proceedings and awaiting court hearings under electronic surveillance while their cases are pending.

Authorities monitor ATD enrollees through three primary methods: the GPS ankle device; a telephonic reporting system that facilitates participant check-ins using voice-recognition technology; and an increasingly common mobile check-in app that uses facial recognition software. Although the program launched in 2004, the number of migrants placed under ATD has skyrocketed under the Biden administration. When President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, less than 90,000 people were in the program. Now, more than a quarter million people, including asylum seekers like Ssemanda, are enrolled in the digital surveillance system.

…“You feel you’re in prison again,” he said, likening the bracelet to an electronic cage that hovered overhead as he tried to carve out a new life in the U.S. It was an unwieldy symbol of his tenuous place in America, a subtle threat.

The monitor also brought up the sensation of being tracked in the country he fled, Uganda, where he was kidnapped, beaten, and tortured for his advocacy against the government, mobilizing youth in support of democracy efforts. “I left my country because of certain kinds of problems I had, and then when I came here, I couldn’t believe that I’m the one having that bracelet. That I was facing this kind of situation in the U.S.”

…Ssemanda’s experiences are consistent with findings from a 2021 report published by the immigrant rights groups Freedom for Immigrants, the Immigrant Defense Project and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The study cited surveys of approximately 150 immigrants placed under electronic ankle monitoring, in which 90% of respondents said the device negatively affected their mental health, causing psychological harms ranging from anxiety to sleep disruption, social isolation, and depression. Twelve percent of respondents said the shackle led them to thoughts of suicide. Nearly 40% said they believed the monitor’s mental health impact was permanent.

…Each fork in the road to a digitally-enforced border and immigration system, however, beckons unintended consequences. Technologies first used on immigrants become susceptible to “mission creep” and later expand to other people and areas. “We know that oftentimes surveillance technologies are first used on marginalized populations at the border, against immigrant communities as a means of surveillance and then spreads to other places as well,” said Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital privacy and surveillance.

Read more:

Hellerstein, E. (2022, May 26). ‘I felt like I was a prisoner’: The rapid rise of US immigration authorities’ electronic surveillance programs. Coda. https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/alternatives-to-detention-immigration/