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Upon I first came in the US four years ago to start my PhD at Cornell University, I thought I would be the last person to be hunted by federal immigration agents. From my perspective, holding a British passport seemed to grant a certain protection similar 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.

Things began to fall apart after I participated in a pro-Palestine protest on campus in September the previous year. We had halted a campus recruitment event because it included booths from companies that provided Israel with armaments used in its campaign in Gaza. Even though I was there for just five minutes, I was subsequently barred from university grounds, a punishment that felt like a type of house arrest since my home was on the university’s Ithaca campus. While I could continue living there, I was prohibited from entering any campus facilities.

In January, as Donald Trump came into power and enacted a series of executive orders targeting non-citizen student protesters, I left my home and sought refuge at the secluded home of a professor, fearing the reach of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Three months later, I self-deported to Canada, then traveled to Switzerland. I was compelled to flee after a friend, who had spent time with me in Ithaca, was detained 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 detained there under anti-terrorism laws, which made me fearful.

Surveillance and Visa Revocation

I hoped 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, 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 DHS. 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 re-enter the US, I would likely be detained by ICE, similar to other student protesters. But the secrecy surrounding these procedures and the lack of legal recourse to challenge them provoked more questions than they answered.

Was there any communication between Cornell and US government authorities prior to 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?

Artificial Intelligence Surveillance and Risk-Assessment Tools

I may never get complete answers, but an investigation by Amnesty International sheds fresh insight on the alarming ways the US government has deployed secretive AI tech to extensively watch, surveil, and evaluate non-US citizen students and immigrants.

Amnesty says that Babel X, a program made by Virginia-based Babel Street, reportedly searches social media for “terrorism”-related content and tries to determine the potential intent behind posts. The software uses “persistent search” to constantly 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 intelligence agencies in the Libyan civil war—was flagged. Amnesty International notes that predictive technologies have a high rate of inaccuracy, “can often be biased and biased, and could lead to falsely framing pro-Palestine content as antisemitic.”

Then there is Palantir’s ImmigrationOS, which generates an electronic case file to centralize all information related to an immigrant investigation, allowing authorities to link multiple investigations and establish relationships 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 at that time.

Pre-Crime Policing and Lack of Legal Rights

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 charged or prosecuted for any crime, or for exhibiting antisemitic behavior. As made clear 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 used my First Amendment free speech rights to oppose the slaughter of innocent people. It is the US government that has acted illegally and unethically.

The Amnesty report highlights the ways that technology companies and governments are cooperating in the monitoring, control, and expulsion of racial others and migrants, as well as activists and journalists. We’re seeing this unfold in Gaza, where Israel’s “algorithmic warfare” has turned 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 mobilizing tech to strip asylum seekers and migrants of their basic human rights, subjecting them to arbitrary detention before they have a chance to defend themselves or seek safety.

Individual Consequences and Thoughts

While I am far from regretting my actions, I now live in a month-to-month state of uncertainty of precarious living arrangements and persistent doubts about whether I can finish my degree before my funding is cut. I have been compelled to navigate obstacles 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 injustices. But just before I left the US, Joe, my African American barber, reminded me that: “You’re just Black.” My Blackness made my status in the US uncertain. And because I am also Muslim and write about these aspects of myself, 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 be cautious. What is piloted on minorities soon spreads into the mainstream.