Dreaming of Seamless Borders: A Comparison of US-VISIT, UK eBorders, and the EU’s Entry/Exit plans

Border management has changed significantly in the last two decades. Digitalization and the application of other new technologies into border and migration management have altered our view of the border and of migration flows. With new technology, ideas of total information awareness have also entered the policy discourse of migration management. Earlier migration database systems tended to chart populations such as asylum seekers and migrants on short term visas, because of the risk of asylum and visa shopping and irregularity. In contrast, second generation migration databases are fully biometric and increasingly aim to register all those who cross the external border, including nationals. The best examples of these catch-all data systems are the so called entry-exit systems. In this paper we compare two operational entry-exit systems, the US-VISIT system and the UK’s eBorders programme, with the plans and intentions of the EU’s Entry/Exit system. The analysis will include the policy level (what the systems are expected to achieve), the mid-level of risk analysis on which the systems operate, and the practical level of implementation of the systems. Through this multi-level analysis, the paper examines whether dreams of seamless borders, articulated at the policy level, can be translated into the reality of border and migration management.