Technosecuritization across the Atlantic: Digital migration governance in the European Union and the United States

This Article analyzes how the growing use of digital technologies in migration management in the European Union (EU) and United States (US) reflects and reinforces the securitization of immigration, and explores the resulting implications for human rights and, more broadly, for core principles enshrined in both systems’ constitutional background. Drawing on securitization theory and critical scholarship on digital governance, the Article argues that both systems are undergoing a process of technosecuritization and identifies three analytical dimensions thereof: risk-by-default, identity consolidation through interoperable data architectures, and automation with legally consequential outputs. The comparative analysis shows that, in the EU, technosecuritization is legalized and codified through broad regulatory frameworks—such as the interoperability regime, the reformed Eurodac system, and the AI Act—within a supranational order formally committed to human rights. In contrast, in the United States, technosecuritization unfolds primarily through executive-driven integration of biometric and targeting systems within the Department of Homeland Security, supported by expansive national security doctrines and by a fragmented framework of judicial and administrative oversight. While both systems experience a relocation of discretion toward infrastructural design, the core constitutional and legal environment surrounding this shift diverges significantly. Consequently, the Article claims that technosecuritization exposes different vulnerabilities of the two systems and concludes by proposing safeguards aimed at extending legal scrutiny upstream—enhancing transparency in system design, strengthening meaningful human oversight, and reinforcing the linkage between digital infrastructure and constitutional guarantees of review and rights protection.