Emerging Innovative Border Technologies Act
Key claim: The Emerging Innovative Border Technologies Act (HR993) requires CBP and DHS Science and Technology to deliver a plan and Innovation Teams to identify, integrate, and deploy emerging technologies—including AI, machine learning, and advanced sensors—for border security, with congressional reporting on adoption metrics and privacy impacts on border communities.
Abstract
(HR993 · 119th Congress) Emerging Innovative Border Technologies Act This bill requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security to develop a plan to identify, integrate, and deploy emerging and innovative technologies to improve border security operations. Such technologies may incorporate artificial intelligence, machine-learning, automation, fiber-optic sensing technology, nanotechnology, optical and cognitive radar, modeling and simulation technology, hyperspectral and LIDAR sensors, and imaging, identification, and categorization systems. The bill authorizes CBP to establish one or more Innovation Teams to research and adapt commercial technologies that may be used by CBP. The plan must describe how the Innovation Teams have been implemented and also detail goals and timelines for adoption of qualifying technologies, metrics and key performance parameters for determining the plan’s effectiveness, which technologies used by other federal agencies CBP may also utilize, which existing authorities CBP may use to procure technologies, how CBP legacy border technology programs may be replaced, the expected privacy and security impact of security-related technology on border communities, and recent technological advancements in specified technologies. CBP must provide the plan to Congress within 180 days of the bill’s enactment. The bill also requires CBP to annually report to Congress regarding the activities of the Innovation Teams. Latest action (2025-03-11): Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Why this matters
HR993 would formalize how CBP and DHS S&T scout, integrate, and deploy AI, ML, and sensor technologies for border operations, converting ad hoc pilots into a planned pipeline with Innovation Teams and congressional reporting. For developers and platform vendors, it signals a structured federal procurement pathway into border-security AI; for users and border communities, the required privacy-impact reporting embeds civil-liberties oversight into the technology-adoption process.