A/HRC/45/9 between immigration authorities and a company in order to avoid the application of the new law.54 74. In addition, some companies have discontinued certain types of activity due to public outcry or divestment campaigns. For example, several American airline companies reportedly refused to transport children who have been separated from their families in the context of the zero-tolerance policy. Some major American banks apparently took a similar stance by announcing they would cease financing companies that operate private detention centres. Companies have also come under pressure from trade unions as their employees have expressed concerns about the use of airlines in deportations involving forced family separations. An airline in the United Kingdom announced that it would terminate transportation services for deportations as a campaign was mounted regarding alleged unlawful removals of long-term United Kingdom residents from Commonwealth countries (see para. 54 above) and in relation to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and genderdiverse asylum seekers.55 IX. Conclusions and recommendations Conclusions 75. Corporate involvement in security aspects of immigration and border management has increased exponentially in recent decades. While privatization is neither encouraged nor prohibited by international law, the international human rights framework is unequivocal that, ultimately, States are accountable for the impacts companies have on the enjoyment of human rights. States must be particularly vigilant when they outsource inherent government functions to private commercial actors that are motivated primarily by profit, fostering situations in which human rights are subordinated to goals of efficiency, effectiveness and costcutting. 76. Profound and long-standing concerns have been expressed by United Nations human rights mechanisms, including this Working Group, and civil society actors regarding the impact of privatization of immigration detention and more broadly of the privatization of the delivery of services that may have an impact on the enjoyment of human rights. The present report highlights the dramatic consequences of States contracting companies to undertake an array of security services to support State policies and measures to tighten border controls and prevent entry to irregular or undocumented migrants. At times, companies are directly responsible for human rights abuses of migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, notably in situations of deprivation of liberty. In other instances, they are complicit in human rights violations and abuse caused by other actors, such as immigration and border authorities, primarily through the border security technologies they provide and their co-framing of migration as a security threat for which the “solution” is security and military technical and technological tools, which only they can provide. 77. Everything points to this practice not only continuing, but also growing, as new markets open up and appetite for constantly updated technologies generates continued demand for these so-called security solutions. In many countries, notably in the global North, dominant political and economic interests around enforcing immigration and border controls have become so tightly interwoven that they will be hard to unravel. A fundamental evaluation of the way that migration is governed, including the role that companies play in reinforcing security over humanitarian approaches and the specific security services they provide in this sector, is urgently needed in order to address the violations and abuses of the rights of migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, that are taking place on a massive scale. Those countries with several decades of experience of using private security-related 54 55 See submission by the Center for International Human Rights of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. See submission by the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility. 17