Cybersecurity & Tech Surveillance & Privacy

Lawfare Daily: The Dangers of Privatized, Automated Immigration Enforcement

Tyler McBrien, Chinmayi Sharma, Jen Patja
Thursday, April 30, 2026, 7:00 AM
A discussion of the U.S. federal government’s increasingly privatized and automated system of immigration enforcement.
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Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Chinmayi Sharma, an associate professor at Fordham Law School and a contributing editor at Lawfare, to discuss Sharma’s forthcoming law review article, “Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries.”

They discuss the U.S. federal government’s increasingly privatized and automated system of immigration enforcement—which Sharma describes as “a code-based Leviathan—cloaked in the veneer of legal legitimacy yet operating outside traditional democratic channels”—and how private technology vendors entrench their positions within that system. Sharma also walks through a number of proposals for states and other sub-federal entities to counteract these harms to immigrants, society, and the rule of law itself.

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Tyler McBrien

Tyler McBrien

TylerMcBrien
tylermcbrien.com
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Tyler McBrien is the managing editor of Lawfare. He previously worked as an editor with the Council on Foreign Relations and a Princeton in Africa Fellow with Equal Education in South Africa, and holds an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago.
Chinmayi Sharma

Chinmayi Sharma

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Chinmayi Sharma is an associate professor at Fordham Law School. Her research and teaching focus on internet governance, platform accountability, cybersecurity, and computer crime/criminal procedure. Before joining academia, Chinmayi worked at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP, a telecommunications law firm in Washington, D.C., clerked for Chief Judge Michael F. Urbanski of the Western District of Virginia, and co-founded a software development company.
Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
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