Divest Borders Campaign Targets
The Border Industry
Although governments are responsible for creating immigration policy, they are outsourcing the implementation of most of this violence to the private sector. Thus, the border regime relies on a vast network of hundreds of companies, many of which are household names. These firms provide and develop the technologies and labour required to make the hostile environment a reality, as well as playing a significant role in promoting these policies and the alarmist, racist, xenophobic narratives which feed into them. Collectively, these firms make up the Border Industry, which is the target of our campaign.
Research by Corporate Watch has defined seven separate sectors of the border industry:
- Cloud Industrial Complex: The Invisible Infrastructure
The physical infrastructure of data centres, power grids, and supply chains owned by a handful of tech giants which underpins digital border control. It transforms the movement of people into data streams that generate profit from the extraction of land, electricity, and rare minerals - Deportation
The (usually involuntary) removal of people from a country, often by force, due to the determination that they have ‘no right’ to be there. - Detention
The industrial-scale deprivation of liberty for migration-related reasons, and the provision of all infrastructure and services required to undertake it. A private industry built on cages, contractors, and the indefinite suspension of rights. - Accommodation
The provision of shelter for people seeking asylum and migrants, typically managed by private contractors for profit. - Border Control: Security, Tech, and Surveillance
The creation and maintenance of physical border security infrastructure, as well as the personnel who staff it. It combines physical barriers with AI-driven surveillance, drone fleets, and armed personnel, supplied by contractors who profit from keeping people out. - Search and "Rescue"
Weaponised as a tool of deterrence, state agencies and private contractors blur the line between saving lives and preventing arrival to justify expanded surveillance budgets. - Biometrics and Identification
Newer technologies such as AI, facial recognition, phone hacking, and biometric scanners used to gather and store data on migrating people.
You can find more information about the violence inherent in each of these sectors in the full research by Corporate Watch.
Read Full Research from Corporate Watch
