A static display by Tower Solutions Inc. at the 2024 Border Expo in El Paso, Texas, shows off the company’s mobile camera technology. Photo by Dugan Meyer
Phoenix will be hosting a convention featuring President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” as well as hundreds of military and tech companies bidding for government border contracts, including a company involved in the torture in Abu Ghraib.
The Border Security Expo at the Phoenix Convention Center April 8 and 9 features panel discussions, as well as an expo floor where vendors can hawk their wares to government officials from around the world.
“It is just a big marketplace of companies — mostly tech companies — trying to sell things to the government,” Dave Maass, director of investigations for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Arizona Mirror about the event. The EFF has previously catalogued the vendors who attend the annual conference, with a focus on technologies such as AI, infrared cameras and more.
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The Trump administration has made border security a top priority after campaigning on immigration as a major issue. The administration’s actions have faced scrutiny for their lack of due process and they have consistently tried to keep their mass deportation plans a secret.
The Mirror attempted to get press credentials to the Border Security Expo but was told that the event is closed to the press “this year.” The event website lists “media partners,” which include online pro-law enforcement trade publications like Border Security Report, Homeland Security Today and Officer.com. Homeland Security Today is run by a group of CEOs whose companies are on the expo floor.
The event will feature a number of high ranking officials from Customs and Border Patrol, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The most high profile is Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan.
Homan served as the acting director of ICE in Trump’s first term. He backed the controversial “zero tolerance” policy at the southern border and has been connected to far-right extremist and conspiracy theorist groups. Homan is scheduled to give the opening remarks at the event as part of a “State of the Border” discussion.
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels will also speak at the event on a panel to give local perspectives to border issues.
While the event will feature a number of panel discussions and high profile speakers, it will also feature a litany of companies who will be aiming to impress government officials at the event in the hopes of securing a government contract or continuing an existing one.
The Mirror examined the list of companies set to be in attendance to highlight some of the key trends as well as noteworthy companies seeking the attention of the government officials.
The military industrial complex
Many, if not most, of the vendors at the expo also serve the United States military and militaries overseas.
For example, Thales Defense and Security Inc. is a subsidiary of Thales Group, a French multinational aerospace and defense corporation. Its subsidiary has primarily done work on radio upgrades for the US Army and NATO forces and will be present on the expo floor.
When it comes to immigration and border enforcement, the company has supplied the systems the United States uses at ports of entry that involve biometric data. Other companies known for their large military contracts, such as BAE Systems, also will be present.
One particular military contracting company with a dark past also will have a booth on the expo floor. In November 2024, a jury found that Caci International shared liability with the U.S. Army for the torture of three Iraqi men at the Abu Graib prion in 2004, awarding the men $42 million.
The Virginia-based defense contractor has long gotten a number of contracts from the Department of Homeland Security.
Caci International is not the only government contractor with a controversial past.
Journalists at ProPublica recently exposed how private prison company GEO Group, an ICE contractor, has been refusing to pay detainees more than $1 a day for cleaning the governmental facilities at which they live. GEO Group’s stocks have skyrocketed under the Trump administration to $4 billion.
Another group with ties to Trump and a controversial backstory that will be present on the expo floor is Constellis, part of the private security company known as Triple Canopy.
Triple Canopy is a formation of what were once rival private security companies, Blackwater and Constellis. Guards from that company were spotted outside various federal agencies that were being taken over by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Also present will be Anduril Industries, which has ties to Palantir, and whose director of defense technology was nominated by Trump to serve as the Army’s No. 2 official.
Military grade equipment
The expo floor will be full of vendors showing off their products which range from physical products like cameras and ground sensors to software that can be used to process data obtained by law enforcement.
Much of that equipment is also military grade.
Groups like ProTech Defense, Soal Marine Group and QuickSet Defense Technologies make military grade equipment that is marketed not just to federal agencies patrolling the border, but military customers.
Other tech is similar, often showcased being used by armed forces in online literature or described with military jargon.
Many of the surveillance camera platforms are similar or the same as those used on military aircraft, naval vessels or ground vehicles. Some firms, like Controp USA, boast about the capabilities of their surveillance platforms for both local law enforcement and military.
The militarization of police and border enforcement has long been a point of debate among privacy advocates, with research suggesting that law enforcement that has more access to military grade equipment are more likely to have violent encounters with the public.
Strongwatch will have a presence at the expo and it already has some of its tools in the hands of local Arizona law enforcement. The Phoenix Police Department has one of Strongwatch’s “Freedom on the Move” surveillance truck platforms, which are frequently deployed at parades and protests.
Anti/pro-drone
This year’s expo also features a number of companies focused on anti-drone technology, something local lawmakers and Attorney General Kris Mayes have been focused on lately, as well.
House Bill 2733 by Rep. David Marshall, R-Snowflake, would give local law enforcement immunity from liability for damage to personal property if they are shooting down a drone they believe is engaged in criminal activity.
The bill comes amid an increase in drug cartel drones flying over the states’ southern border, GOP lawmakers and Mayes say that local police should be able to shoot them out of the sky without fear they’ll be sued. A large number of tech companies at the expo this year are offering their own solutions to this problem.
Fortem Technologies has provided its counter-UAS (unmanned aerial systems, a technical term for drones) equipment to Ukrainian forces, leading to it being sanctioned by Russia in response. The company has already been attracting interest from DHS, but other competitors have been vying for what appears to be a burgeoning market.
The Mirror found four other companies that will be on the expo floor selling anti-drone tech, with another that has sent one of its devices to frontline forces in Ukraine. But there are just as many companies, if not more, wanting to put eyes up in the sky as there are that want to remove them.
Aerial surveillance is a major strategy of CBP and DHS, who deploy aerial assets to the border daily to follow suspects or surveil areas where border crossers are known to frequent or smugglers are known to go.
A number of companies focused on different forms of aerial surveillance are also present at this year’s expo including multiple manufacturers of aerostats, a type of blimp. Recently, one of CBP’s blimps became untethered in Texas, leading to it flying miles away after being blown away by gusts of wind.
QinetiQ, the UK firm behind the Zephyr “pseudo satellite,” a high flying unmanned aircraft that can stay aloft for months at a time, will also be at the expo. Ascent AeroSystems, a subsidiary of Robinson Helicopters, will be at the expo and is currently promoting a new drone that it says is “advanced aerial surveillance in the palm of your hand.”
A number of new drone technologies appear to be on display at this year’s expo, including a hydrogen powered drone and a tethered drone as well.
AI and more
Another trend this year is the promotion of artificial intelligence. Many of the companies tout the use of AI either to boost already existing programs or to be used in new ways.
One such company is Overland AI, which recently raised $32 million in funding. The company aims to create fully autonomous ground vehicles for the military and Overland is partnered with L3 Harris, one of the largest defense contractors in the world, who will also be present at the expo.
Other uses for AI are for surveillance gathering and analysis, such as with Australian-based FiveCast, which has previously signed contracts with DHS to use AI to look for open source intelligence threats.
Social media monitoring tools that have alarmed privacy advocates, like ShadowDragon, will also be present at the expo.
Other software companies that will be on the sales floor have faced controversy in the past.
One company, Perceptics, which has gotten contracts with the federal government for biometric data collection and automatic license plate reader collection, was part of the reason for a major breach in biometric data related to a facial recognition pilot program.
“A subcontractor working on this effort, Perceptics, LLC, transferred copies of CBP’s biometric data, such as traveler images, to its own company network. The subcontractor obtained access to this data between August 2018 and January 2019 without CBP’s authorization or knowledge. Later in 2019, DHS experienced a major privacy incident, as the subcontractor’s network was subjected to a malicious cyber attack,” the Office of the Inspector General wrote in a 2020 report.
Sponsors
While the event is closed to the press and largely to the public, those who can afford it can opt to pay $1,395 for the full conference. Those with government email or .edu email addresses can get in for free, and the expo offers a guide to those seeking to “justify” the event’s cost to their employer.
Akima, who got nearly a billion dollars in contracts with the United States Space Force last year, is the expo’s top sponsor. However, under the “Supporting Organizations” banner of the event are some more notable organizations.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a conservative think tank whose members have been promoted by Trump in the previous administration and have denied climate change, pushed school vouchers and received funding from both the GEO Group and Koch Industries.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation was also on the advisory board of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a collection of right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power under the Trump administration. The list of policy plans was largely created by former Trump aides and allies.
Another “supporting organization” is the Border Patrol Foundation, whose president in 2018 garnered controversy for defending the use of pepper spray on migrants at the border by saying that a person could put it on nachos and eat it. That man, Ron Colburn, is on the advisory board for the expo.
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This post was originally authored and published by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy from AZ Mirror via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
