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When I first arrived in the United States four years ago to start my doctorate at Cornell University, I thought I would be the last person to be targeted by federal immigration agents. As far as I could tell, holding a British passport seemed to grant a sort of immunity akin to that enjoyed by diplomats—a freedom that had enabled me to work as a journalist safely across West Africa’s restive Sahel region for years.

The situation deteriorated after I attended a pro-Palestinian protest on campus in September last year. We had halted a campus recruitment event because it featured booths from corporations that supplied Israel with weapons used in its campaign in Gaza. Although I was there for just five minutes, I was later banned from campus, a punishment 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 forbidden from accessing any university premises.

In January, as Donald Trump assumed office and issued a series of presidential directives aimed at non-citizen student protesters, I abandoned my home and sought refuge at the remote home of a professor, fearing the reach of ICE. Three months later, I self-deported to Canada, then flew to Switzerland. I was prompted to flee after a friend, who had been with me in Ithaca, was detained at a Florida airport and interrogated about my location. I did not return to the UK because accounts indicated that pro-Palestine journalists had been arrested there under anti-terrorism laws, which filled me with apprehension.

Monitoring and Immigration Status Revocation

I expected my arrival in Switzerland would mark the end of my difficult experience. But a fortnight later, two alarming emails reached my inbox. The first was from Cornell, informing me that the US government had effectively revoked my student visa status. The second came from Google, indicating that it had complied with a legal request and provided my data to the Department of Homeland Security. These emails arrived just 90 minutes apart.

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

Was there any correspondence between Cornell and US government agencies before my visa being canceled? What did the world’s strongest government want with my Google data? Why did the US authorities target me? Had they built a narrative 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 Risk-Assessment Tools

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

Amnesty says 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 constantly monitor new information once an search request 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 predictive technologies have a wide margin of error, “can often be biased and biased, and could lead to falsely labeling pro-Palestine content as antisemitic.”

Then there is Palantir’s ImmigrationOS, which creates 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 help explain why the US took action to block my re-entry into the country when it did.

Predictive Policing and Absence of Legal Rights

This all exists in the pre-crime space that has grown significantly since the launch of the US-led “war on terror”—catch now, ask questions later. To this day, I have never been charged or prosecuted for any crime, or for displaying antisemitic behavior. As made clear by a recent legal submission 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 oppose the slaughter of innocent people. It is the US government that has acted illegally and immorally.

The Amnesty report emphasizes the ways that big tech and governments are colluding in the surveillance, control, and expulsion of minorities and migrants, as well as activists and journalists. We’re seeing this play out in Gaza, where Israel’s “algorithmic warfare” has reduced the territory into a wasteland of corpses and rubble, leaving Palestinians with nowhere to go and no food. The investigation further shows that the US is mobilizing tech to strip asylum seekers and migrants of their basic human rights, subjecting them to unjust imprisonment before they have a chance to plead their case or ask for safety.

Personal Impact and Thoughts

While I am far from feeling sorry for my actions, I now live in a month-to-month state of uncertainty of unstable living arrangements and nagging 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 above 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 conditional. And because I am also Muslim and write about these identities, it does not make things easier. It is no surprise that in a country with a legacy 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 constitutional safeguards, we should all beware. What is tested on minorities soon spreads into the mainstream.