A government shutdown deal seems to have been reached. Details are scant, and it’s still unclear whether the president will sign the deal, but the rough outline is there: more detention beds, more fencing, and more funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The Democrats, in other words, are conceding to Trump’s calls for increased border security. Importantly, their increased funding for DHS includes miscellaneous “technology” spending, which, given past statements, is likely to include drones, artificial intelligence, and unspecified “cutting-edge technology”.

Late last month, Democratic party leadership released a proposal for “smart, efficient border security”. It’s all but certain that the compromise deal will include elements from this proposal, given the buy-in from almost all Democrats, wary of another government shutdown but untroubled by demands from groups like ours to back down from the creation of a “smart wall” using untested, biased technology.

Our calls have been ignored. The Democrats are prepared, as the House majority whip, Jim Clyburn, has made clear, to give Trump billions – so long as it is spent on a tech wall, not a physical one.

“I’ve said that we ought to have a smart wall. I defined that as a wall using drones to make it too high to get over, using x-ray equipment to make it too wide to get around, and using scanners to go deep enough not to be able to tunnel under it,” said Clyburn. “To me, that would be a smart thing to do.”

We should be extremely cautious about increasing funding for a “smart wall”. Such a wall will amass profits for military companies like Raytheon, tech firms like Amazon, and private prison makers like Geo Group, but do nothing to solve the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.

It will also likely lead to civil rights violations writ large – not just for migrants, but for the two-thirds of the American population who live within 100 miles of the border around the US as a whole. Eventually, surveillance technology perfected at the border could be repurposed against us all, as is often the case when new tech is rolled out first against the most vulnerable populations.

Noteworthy among the proposed investments are more funding for “air and marine operations” along the border, the “expansion of risk-based targeting of passengers”, and unspecified “cutting-edge technology” that would “improve situational awareness”. In other words: drones, artificial intelligence, and untested surveillance technology.

Customs and Border Protection would probably use all within the zone 100 miles of a land or coastal border that is already subject to fewer constitutional rights than the rest of the country, despite a full two-thirds of the American people living in it. What happens when border drones begin operating in this zone, taking photos of 200 million people in the name of national security and storing their faces in large, privatized databases?

This does nothing to address the root causes of migration. It punishes the most vulnerable among us

The privacy implications are vast: the mass collection of person data – of both citizens and non-citizens alike – and the widespread use of artificial intelligence technologies like facial recognition to analyze them for border agents. Such technologies have known issues with bias, particularly against people of color, and these issues will be amplified as information gleaned from border patrol is shared with law enforcement agencies across the country, as is already current practice.

Taken in tandem with the administration’s antagonism to asylum, such policies serve only to disincentivize immigration and asylum-seeking generally, by increasing the dangers of border crossings. Let’s be clear: tightening the noose around the border means more migrants will die as they seek out crossings that are more dangerous but out of sight of border patrol.

This does nothing to address the root causes of migration. It punishes the most vulnerable among us – migrants who have taken the drastic step of leaving their home for a better shot elsewhere – by enmeshing them in an efficient government surveillance net that could follow them in law enforcement agencies across the country and around the world.

The beneficiaries of this proposal, however, are very clear: companies like Raytheon, which builds drones for the military; Amazon, which is currently shopping facial recognition technology to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and which also provides cloud storage to dozens of government agencies; and Palantir, the provider of software to Ice that allows its agents to track and build profiles of undocumented migrants throughout the country.

These companies stand to make millions. Just last week, we saw a report that tech firms are lining up to bid on contracts for beefed-up border enforcement. Silicon Valley will circle around these billions like sharks smelling blood.

The proposal is not uncontested, however. Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar drafted a letter to their colleagues urging “not another dollar” to the homeland security department until reforms are made, citing migrant children detention centers like Tornillo and “an agenda driven by hate”. They have been consistent in their demands that the Democrats not increase funding for DHS.

Given the willingness of the majority of Democrats to support more physical barriers and more border patrol agents, it’s likely they will steamroll their colleagues’ opposition and approve a budget that includes increased funding for a tech wall.

This would be a mistake. A wall made of drones and cameras would be just as wrong as one made of concrete. The real emergency along the southern border is comprised of the abhorrent conditions that migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are forced to suffer. The answer cannot be to violate human and civil rights and line corporate coffers.