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Upon I first came in the US four years ago to begin my PhD at Cornell University, I believed I would be the last person to be hunted by immigration authorities. As far as I could tell, holding a British passport seemed to grant a certain immunity akin to that enjoyed by diplomats—a mobility that had enabled me to work as a journalist safely 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 featured booths from corporations that supplied Israel with armaments used in its military operations in Gaza. Although I was there for just a brief moment, I was subsequently barred from university grounds, a sanction that felt like a form of confinement since my residence was on the university’s Ithaca campus. While I could continue living there, I was forbidden from entering any university premises.

In January, as Donald Trump came into power and issued a set of executive orders aimed at non-citizen student protesters, I left my home and went into hiding at the remote home of a professor, worried about the reach of ICE. Three months later, I voluntarily left to Canada, then traveled to Switzerland. I was prompted to flee after a acquaintance, who had been with me in Ithaca, was detained at a Florida airport and questioned 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 Revocation

I hoped my arrival in Switzerland would mark the end of my ordeal. But a fortnight later, two distressing emails appeared in my inbox. The first was from Cornell, notifying me that the US government had effectively terminated my student visa status. The second came from Google, indicating 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 quickfire emails validated 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, similar to other student protesters. But the lack of transparency surrounding these procedures and the lack of due process to challenge them provoked more questions than they answered.

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

AI Monitoring and Predictive Tools

I may never get complete answers, but an investigation by the human rights organization sheds fresh insight on the concerning ways the US government has used shadowy AI tech to extensively watch, observe, and assess non-US citizen students and immigrants.

Amnesty says 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 constantly monitor new information once an initial query has been made. It is possible that my journalistic work—on topics ranging from Guantánamo to drone strikes in the Sahel and the role of British intelligence agencies in the Libyan civil war—was flagged. The organization says that probabilistic technologies have a wide margin of error, “can often be biased and prejudiced, and could lead to incorrectly framing pro-Palestine content as antisemitic.”

Then there is Palantir’s ImmigrationOS, which creates an electronic case file to consolidate all information related to an immigrant case, allowing authorities to link multiple investigations and draw connections between cases. Using ImmigrationOS, ICE can also monitor self-deportations, and it was launched in April, the same month I left. It may clarify why the US took action to bar my re-entry into the country at that time.

Predictive Enforcement and Lack of Due Process

This all exists in the pre-crime space that has expanded significantly 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 exhibiting antisemitic behavior. As demonstrated 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 used my First Amendment 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 cooperating in the surveillance, 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 corpses and rubble, leaving Palestinians with nowhere to go and no food. The investigation further shows that the US is mobilizing tech to deprive asylum seekers and migrants of their fundamental rights, consigning them to unjust imprisonment before they have a chance to defend themselves or ask for safety.

Individual Consequences and Thoughts

While I am far from regretting my actions, I now live in a month-to-month limbo of unstable living arrangements and persistent doubts about whether I can finish my degree before my funding is cut. I have been forced to jump through hoops to access life-saving medical treatment. I was perhaps naive to think that as a British national with a London accent, at an Ivy League university, I was immune to these injustices. But just before I left the US, Joe, my African American barber, told 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 aspects of myself, 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 AI tools in the hands of an administration that has minimal respect for constitutional safeguards, we should all be cautious. What is tested on minorities soon drifts into the mainstream.