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When I initially came in the US four years ago to start my doctorate at Cornell University, I thought I would be the last person to be targeted by immigration authorities. From my perspective, holding a British passport seemed to grant a certain immunity akin to that enjoyed by diplomats—a freedom that had allowed me to work as a journalist unscathed across West Africa’s unstable Sahel region for years.

Things began to fall apart after I attended a pro-Palestinian demonstration on campus in September the previous year. We had brought a job fair to a standstill because it included booths from corporations that supplied Israel with armaments used in its military operations in Gaza. Although I was there for just five minutes, I was later barred from university grounds, a sanction that felt like a type of house arrest since my home was on the university’s upstate New York campus. While I could remain there, I was forbidden from accessing any university premises.

In January, as the new administration assumed office and enacted a series of executive orders targeting non-citizen student protesters, I abandoned my home and sought refuge at the remote 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 spent time with me in Ithaca, was apprehended 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 detained there under anti-terrorism laws, which made me fearful.

Surveillance and Immigration Status Revocation

I hoped my arrival in Switzerland would signal the conclusion of my difficult experience. But a fortnight later, two alarming emails reached 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, stating that it had complied with a legal request and provided my data to the Department of Homeland Security. These emails arrived just an hour and a half apart.

The quickfire emails confirmed my hunch that I had been under observation and that if I attempted to return to the US, I would likely be arrested by ICE, like other student protesters. But the lack of transparency surrounding these procedures and the lack of legal recourse to contest them provoked more questions than they answered.

Was there any correspondence between Cornell and US government agencies before my visa being terminated? What did the most powerful 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 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 get complete answers, but an report by the human rights organization sheds fresh insight on the alarming ways the US government has used secretive AI tech to mass-monitor, surveil, and evaluate non-US citizen students and immigrants.

The report states that Babel X, software made by Virginia-based Babel Street, allegedly searches social media for “terrorism”-related content and tries to predict the likely intent behind posts. The software uses “persistent search” to continuously monitor new information once an initial query has been made. It is likely that my journalistic work—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. Amnesty International notes that predictive technologies have a high rate of inaccuracy, “can often be discriminatory and biased, and could lead to falsely labeling 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 investigation, allowing authorities to link multiple investigations and draw connections between cases. Using ImmigrationOS, ICE can also track self-deportations, and it was launched in April, the same month I left. It may help explain why the US took action to bar my re-entry into the country when it did.

Pre-Crime Policing and Absence of Due Process

This all exists in the predictive policing space that has grown 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 prosecuted for any crime, or for displaying antisemitic behavior. As demonstrated by a recent complaint by the University of Chicago Law Clinic, filed 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 killing of innocent people. It is the US government that has acted illegally and unethically.

The Amnesty report highlights the ways that technology companies and powerful states are cooperating in the surveillance, control, and deportation of racial others and migrants, as well as political dissidents and journalists. We’re seeing this unfold in Gaza, where Israel’s “algorithmic warfare” has reduced the territory into a wasteland of corpses and rubble, leaving Palestinians with no refuge and nothing to eat. The investigation further shows that the US is using tech to strip asylum seekers and migrants of their basic human rights, consigning them to arbitrary detention before they have a chance to plead their case or ask for safety.

Personal Impact and Reflection

While I am far from regretting my actions, I now live in a month-to-month limbo of unstable living arrangements and nagging 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 naive 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, told me that: “You’re just Black.” My racial identity made my status in the US conditional. And because I am also Muslim and write about 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 targeted.

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 spreads into the mainstream.