Steven Roberson, of QinetiQ, demonstrates a unmanned robotic system at the 8th annual Border Security Expo, in Phoenix. The two day event features panel discussions, sharing intelligence, and exhibitors displaying high-tech wares aimed at securing lucrative government contracts and private sales. Matt York/AP

PHOENIX — Scores of security companies selling everything from Taser-resistant clothing to armored vehicles packed a convention center here this week. Outside the showroom, speakers from the top of organizations like Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security gave talks to members of the security industry about their organizations’ operations and needs.

Now in its eighth year, the Border Security Expo may be more important than ever for the security industry. With America’s foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over or coming to a close, many security companies are now forced to look for new markets to maintain their business levels.

Many within the security industry have turned to border security, a potentially lucrative alternative to fill in the gaps. Still, it remains to be seen just how much, if anything, the border region can offer the security industry.

“If you follow the policy debates, the potential could be multibillions of dollars of this kind of technology, but there is also the potential that it could be almost nothing,” says Mark Borkowski, assistant commissioner for the Office of Technology Innovation and Acquisition at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). There remains a healthy constituency calling for more technology along the border, but just how much money becomes available is up to policymakers still mired in the immigration debate.

Without the wartime surge of business, staff at Night Vision Depot have started to get creative about finding new clients. While they’ve looked into more niche markets, such as doomsday preppers, border enforcement agencies hold significant appeal and now make up the company’s third or fourth biggest market.

“I see Customs and Border Protection or Border Patrol as still having access to federal grant money, more so than the other federal agencies,” says John Lesniak, director of business development for the Allentown, Pa.–based firm. “In the short term, the next three to five years, this is a very good place to market to.”

Already immigration enforcement agencies receive more funding than all principal federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined. The Migration Policy Institute found that in fiscal year 2012 spending for immigration enforcement agencies was 24 percent larger than the combined budgets for the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

In this environment, technology makers are looking for ways to turn creations that served the military in Iraq and Afghanistan into equipment that can assist domestic law enforcement equally well.