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Upon I initially arrived in the US four years ago to start my doctorate at Cornell University, I believed I would be the least likely person to be targeted by federal immigration agents. From my perspective, holding a British passport seemed to grant a sort of protection similar to that enjoyed by diplomats—a freedom that had allowed me to work as a journalist unscathed across West Africa’s restive Sahel region for years.

The situation deteriorated after I participated in a pro-Palestine demonstration on campus in September last year. We had halted a campus recruitment event because it included booths from corporations that supplied Israel with armaments used in its military operations in Gaza. Even though I was there for just a brief moment, I was subsequently banned from campus, a sanction that felt like a form of house arrest since my home was on the university’s Ithaca campus. While I could remain there, I was prohibited from entering any campus facilities.

In January, as Donald Trump came into power and issued a set of executive orders aimed at non-citizen student protesters, I abandoned my home and went into hiding at the secluded home of a professor, worried about the reach of ICE. Three months later, I self-deported to Canada, then traveled to Switzerland. I was prompted to flee after a friend, who had been with me in Ithaca, was apprehended at a Florida airport and interrogated about my location. I did not return to the UK because reports indicated that pro-Palestine journalists had been arrested there under anti-terrorism laws, which filled me with apprehension.

Monitoring and Visa Termination

I hoped my arrival in Switzerland would signal the conclusion of my ordeal. But two weeks later, two alarming emails appeared in my inbox. The first was from Cornell, notifying me that the US government had effectively revoked my student visa status. The second came from Google, stating that it had complied with a legal request and handed over my data to the Department of Homeland Security. These emails arrived just an hour and a half apart.

The rapid emails confirmed my suspicion that I had been under observation and that if I attempted to return to the US, I would likely be detained by ICE, like other student protesters. But the lack of transparency surrounding these processes and the lack of due process to contest them provoked more questions than they answered.

Was there any communication between Cornell and US government authorities prior to my visa being terminated? What did the world’s strongest government want with my Google data? Why did the US authorities go after me? Had they constructed a case of doubt based on my years working as a journalist covering the US-led “war on terror”? Was I singled out because I was Black and Muslim?

AI Monitoring and Predictive Tools

I may never receive full answers, but an investigation by Amnesty International sheds fresh insight on the alarming ways the US government has deployed shadowy AI tech to extensively watch, observe, and assess non-US citizen students and immigrants.

The report states that Babel X, a program made by Virginia-based Babel Street, allegedly searches social media for “terrorism”-related content and tries to determine the likely intent behind posts. The software uses “persistent search” to continuously monitor new information once an initial query has been made. It is possible that my reportage—on topics ranging from Guantánamo to drone strikes in the Sahel and the role of British secret services in the Libyan civil war—was marked. The organization says that predictive technologies have a wide margin of error, “can often be biased and biased, and could lead to incorrectly framing pro-Palestine content as antisemitic.”

Then there is Palantir’s ImmigrationOS, which generates an digital record to consolidate all information related to an immigrant case, allowing authorities to connect multiple investigations and draw connections between cases. Using ImmigrationOS, ICE can also track self-deportations, and it was rolled out in April, the same month I left. It may clarify why the US took action to block my re-entry into the country when it did.

Predictive Enforcement and Lack of Due Process

This all exists in the predictive policing space that has expanded exponentially since the launch of the US-led “war on terror”—catch now, ask questions later. To this day, I have never been accused or tried for any crime, or for displaying antisemitic behavior. As made clear by a recent complaint by the University of Chicago Law Clinic, submitted on behalf of me and eight other non-citizen protesters to eight UN special rapporteurs, I’ve merely exercised my constitutional free speech rights to protest the slaughter of innocent people. It is the US government that has acted unlawfully and unethically.

The Amnesty report emphasizes the ways that big tech and powerful states are colluding in the monitoring, control, and deportation of minorities and migrants, as well as activists and journalists. We’re seeing this play out in Gaza, where Israel’s “algorithmic warfare” has turned the territory into a devastated area of the dead and rubble, leaving Palestinians with nowhere to go and nothing to eat. The investigation further shows that the US is using tech to strip asylum seekers and migrants of their fundamental rights, consigning them to unjust imprisonment before they have a chance to defend themselves or seek safety.

Individual Consequences and Thoughts

While I am far from feeling sorry for my actions, I now live in a uncertain limbo of unstable living arrangements and persistent doubts about whether I can complete my degree before my funding is terminated. I have been forced to jump through hoops to access essential medical treatment. I was perhaps overly optimistic to think that as a British national with a London accent, at an Ivy League university, I was above these horrors. But just before I left the US, Joe, my African American barber, reminded me that: “You’re just Black.” My racial identity made my status in the US uncertain. And because I am also Muslim and document these identities, it does not help matters. It is no surprise that in a country with a history of racial slavery and post-9/11 Islamophobia, I would get flagged.

With this technology in the hands of an administration that has minimal respect for legal protections, we should all beware. What is piloted on minorities soon spreads into the mainstream.