The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act (H.R. 6136), introduced before Congress last week, would offer immigrants a new path to citizenship in exchange for increased high tech government surveillance of citizens and immigrants alike. The bill calls for increased DNA and other biometric screening, updated automatic license plate readers, and expanded social media snooping. It also asks for 24 hours-a-day, five-days-a-week drone surveillance along the southern U.S. border.

This bill would give the U.S. Department of Homeland Security broad authority to spy on millions of individuals who live and work as far as 100 miles away from a U.S. border. It would enforce invasive biometric scans on innocent travelers, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.

An Upcoming Vote

In mid-June, after months of stalled negotiations and failed legislative proposals, the Republican caucus of the House of Representatives agreed to a plan on immigration reform: Representatives would vote on two immigration bills.

Representatives smartly rejected one of those bills. The Securing America’s Future Act (H.R. 4760), which EFF opposed, failed in a 193-231 vote. That bill took a hardline stance on immigration and proposed the increased use of invasive surveillance technologies including biometric screening, social media monitoring, automatic license plate readers, and drones.

A vote is expected soon on the second bill: the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act. It would give children who came to this country without documentation—known as “Dreamers”—a path to citizenship. Unfortunately, this bill includes nearly the same bad border surveillance provisions as the bill that failed Thursday.

Given the grave impact this bill would have on individual privacy and rights, we urge Congress to vote the same way as it did Thursday and reject the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act.

More Surveillance Technologies and Drone Flights

The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act would fund multiple surveillance technologies across the United States. Near Detroit, for example, the bill calls for “mobile vehicle-mounted and man-portable surveillance capabilities” for U.S. Customers and Border Protection (CBP) agents. In Washington, the bill similarly calls for “advanced unattended surveillance sensors” and “ultralight aircraft detection capabilities.”

The bill also requires that CBP’s Air and Marine operations fly unmanned drones “on the southern border of the United States for not less than 24 hours per day for five days per week.”

This type of increased drone surveillance was proposed in H.R. 4760. As we previously wrote:

“Drones can capture personal information, including faces and license plates, from all of the people on the ground within the range and sightlines of a drone. Drones can do so secretly, thoroughly, inexpensively, and at great distances. Millions of U.S. citizens and immigrants live close to the U.S. border, and deployment of drones at the U.S. border will invariably capture personal information from vast numbers of innocent people.”

Similar to H.R. 4760, the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act includes no meaningful limitations on the drones’ flight paths, or the collection, storage, and sharing of captured data. The bill could lead to deep invasions into innocent bystanders’ lives, revealing their private information and whereabouts.

More Biometric Screening

The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act also proposes the establishment of a “biometric exit data system” that would require everyone leaving the country—immigrant or citizen—to have their biometric data screened against government biometric databases.

Relatedly, the bill would authorize the CBP Commissioner, “to the greatest extent practicable,” to use facial recognition scanning to inspect citizens traveling to the U.S. from nearly 40 visa waiver program countries, which include Japan, New Zealand, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, and Taiwan.

Further, the bill authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to “make every effort to collect biometric data using multiple modes of biometrics.” That means that fingerprints, facial recognition data, and iris scans could all be up for grabs in the future, so long as the Secretary of Homeland Security deems it necessary.

These proposals are similar to those included in H.R. 4760. They are worrying for the very same reasons:

“Biometric screening is a unique threat to our privacy: it is easy for other people to capture our biometrics, and once this happens, it is hard for us to do anything about it. Once the government collects our biometrics, data thieves might steal it, government employees might misuse it, and policy makers might deploy it to new government programs. Also, facial recognition has significant accuracy problems, especially for people of color.”

More Social Media Snooping on Visa Applicants

The Border Security and Immigration Reform bill also borrows the same deeply-flawed social media monitoring practices as those included in H.R. 4760.

The Border Security and Immigration Reform bill would authorize the Department of Homeland Security to look through the social media accounts of visa applicants from so-called “high-risk countries.” As we said about the proposal in H.R. 4760:

"This would codify and expand existing DHS and State Department programs of screening the social media of certain visa applicants. EFF opposes these programs. Congress should end them. They threaten the digital privacy and freedom of expression of innocent foreign travelers, and the many U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who communicate with them. The government permanently stores this captured social media information in a record system known as 'Alien Files.'"

And similar to H.R. 4760, the Border Security and Immigration Act authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to use literally any criteria they find appropriate to determine what countries classify as “high-risk.” This broad authority would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to target Muslim-majority nations for social media collection.

No Compromising on Civil Liberties

As Congress weighs different factors in the ongoing immigration debate, we urge them to look closely at the expanded high-tech surveillance provisions in this proposed package. This bill would undermine the privacy of countless law-abiding Americans and visitors, regardless of citizenship. So, we urge a “no” vote.