Digitizing deportation: CBP One, CBP Home, and the infrastructure of digital authoritarianism

The authoritarian turn in migration controls worldwide coincides with the proliferation of capillary digital power actualized in deceptively mundane “apps” on migrants’ smartphones. It is no exaggeration to say that phones are the new borders—lifelines for some, tools for exclusion for many. This article examines the use of a single smartphone application in the United States, which underwent a transformation from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) One to CBP Home, in order to illustrate the ways in which digital authoritarianism is always already present for non-citizens, even in nominally democratic countries. The case of CBP One is particularly useful in emphasizing how purportedly humanitarian projects lay technological foundations that can be appropriated for restrictionist ends. The article adopts Glasiu'’s useful framework of digital practices, but calls into question the analytical distinction between authoritarianism and illiberalism in countries experiencing periods of democratic backsliding.