Dystopian robot dogs are the latest in a long history of US-Mexico border surveillance

When the United States' Department of Homeland Security announced in early February it was training quadruped "robot dogs" to help secure the US-Mexico border, the department's spokesperson described the nearly 2,000-mile region as "an inhospitable place for man and beast, and that is exactly why a machine may excel there". But, of course, people do live, work, and try to eke out a living in this "inhospitable" desert space – leaving one to question what, exactly, the robot dog is meant to excel at? The border has long been a testing ground for a range of emerging surveillance and policing technologies, which activists have argued make the space even more dangerous to migrants, all in the name of protection, law, and order. Nicknamed the "smart wall", the tools used at the border include semi-autonomous surveillance drones and surveillance towers equipped with cameras and night vision, and radar. Former US congressman William Hurd, who represented the only Republican-held congressional district on the US-Mexico border for six years, endorsed a plan to bury fiber optic sensors capable of detecting underground movement.