Digital Racial Borders

Abstract

It is the core and intended function of borders to discriminate. Descriptively, their purpose is to differentiate or distinguish among different categories of persons, sorting those who may enter and belong from those who may not. But it is also a core function of modern borders to discriminate in the normatively prejudicial sense—they allocate fundamental human rights differentially on the basis of race, gender, class, national origin, sexual orientation, and disability status, among others. In this essay, I briefly sketch what I have described elsewhere as the contemporary system of racial borders: border regimes that variously allocate and curtail mobility and migration on a racial basis, largely relying upon facially race neutral mechanisms. Second, I reflect on the increasing prevalence of digital technologies in border regimes and their enforcement, with an emphasis on their racial implications, drawing from my recent report to the UN General Assembly on racial discrimination in digital border enforcement. The contribution of this essay is thus to reflect on the co-constituting and mutually reinforcing effects of racial borders and digital borders, which require specific attention together as digital racial borders.