Arguments Against Border Security

Whether it be at airports, railway stations or border crossing by car, the attempt to control the influx of people crossing is a prominent problem among western countries. Through each of these means, there’s an interaction of two concerns. First, border security understood as the many ways of controlling movement across regions. Second, racial profiling defined as the continuous pattern of being stopped by border patrols due to racial differences. On a broader sense, this ends up being a problem between due process and crime control: do one’s legal rights get ignored when it comes to the safety of the public? However, on a smaller scale, the research focuses on whether or not racial profiling of minorities, mostly Muslims, Latinos or African Americans, by border security is prominent, and in fact needed for effectiveness, throughout western countries. By looking at border security and racial profiling as one it underlies an important point about the central argument: border security is made possible by certain …show more content…
The UK and the US, although separated by the Atlantic Ocean, have similar border practices to ensure safety that rely heavily on racial profiling. The context in which these border security practices were made most visible are the same for both countries: the “war on terror” started by the US and its allies, consequently the United Kingdom, in the wake of the September 11th 2001 attacks (Basham and Vaughan-Williams 2013). Moreover, the practices adopted by the two countries are derived by growing technology that exists to identify suspicious activity and generate lists of high-risk citizens. An example of this is US’s “terror watch list” that identifies passengers who are considered threats and are prevented from entering the country ((Basham and Vaughan-Williams 2013). However, the question lies in how border patrols identify who is considered high-risk and who