The buzzword “smart borders” captures the latest instantiation of media technologies constituting state bordering. This article traces historical techniques of knowledge-production and decision-making at the border, in the case of Ellis Island immigration station, New York City (1892–1954). State bordering has long been enabled by media technologies, engulfed with imaginaries of neutral, unambiguous, efficient sorting between desired and undesired migrants—promises central to today’s “smart border” projects. Specifically, the use of “proxies” for decision-making is traced historically, for example, biometric or biographic data, collected as seemingly authentic and neutral stand-ins for the migrant. Techniques of selecting, storing, and correlating proxies through media technologies demonstrate how public health anxieties, eugenics, and scientific technocracy of the Progressive Era formed the context of proxies being entrusted to enable decision-making. This pre-digital history of automation reveals how the logics and politics of proxification endure in contemporary border regimes and automated media at large.

中文翻译：

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聪明的埃利斯岛？自动化边境管制追踪技术


流行语“智能边界”抓住了构成国家边界的媒体技术的最新实例。本文以纽约市埃利斯岛移民站（1892-1954 年）为例，追溯边境知识生产和决策的历史技术。长期以来，国家边境一直是通过媒体技术实现的，媒体技术充满了对想要的和不想要的移民进行中立、明确、有效分类的想象——这是当今“智能边境”项目的核心承诺。具体来说，决策中“代理”的使用是有历史可追溯的，例如，生物特征或传记数据，作为移民看似真实和中立的替身而收集。通过媒体技术选择、存储和关联代理的技术展示了进步时代的公共卫生焦虑、优生学和科学技术统治如何形成委托代理进行决策的背景。这段前数字化的自动化历史揭示了代理化的逻辑和政治如何在当代边境政权和整个自动化媒体中持续存在。