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When I first came in the United States four years ago to begin my doctorate at Cornell University, I believed I would be the least likely person to be hunted by federal immigration agents. From my perspective, 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 unstable Sahel region for years.

The situation deteriorated after I attended a pro-Palestine demonstration on campus in September last year. We had brought a job fair to a standstill because it featured booths from companies that provided Israel with armaments used in its campaign in Gaza. Although I was there for just five minutes, I was subsequently banned from campus, a sanction that felt like a type of confinement since my home was on the university’s Ithaca campus. While I could continue living there, I was prohibited from entering any university premises.

In January, as the new administration assumed office and issued a set of presidential directives targeting non-citizen student protesters, I abandoned my home and went into hiding at the remote home of a professor, fearing the reach of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Three months later, I self-deported to Canada, then flew to Switzerland. I was compelled to flee after a acquaintance, 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 accounts indicated that pro-Palestine journalists had been detained there under terrorism laws, which made me fearful.

Monitoring and Visa Termination

I expected my arrival in Switzerland would mark the end of my ordeal. But two weeks later, two alarming emails appeared in 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, stating 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 suspicion 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 lack of transparency surrounding these procedures and the absence of legal recourse to challenge them raised more questions than they answered.

Was there any correspondence between Cornell and US government agencies before 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 built a case of suspicion based on my years working as a journalist reporting on the US-led “war on terror”? Was I singled out because I was Black and Muslim?

Artificial Intelligence Surveillance and Risk-Assessment Tools

I may never get full answers, but an investigation by Amnesty International sheds fresh insight on the alarming ways the US government has used shadowy AI tech to mass-monitor, surveil, and assess 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 continuously monitor new information once an search request has been made. It is likely 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 flagged. Amnesty International notes 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 creates an electronic case file to consolidate all information related to an immigrant investigation, allowing authorities to connect multiple investigations and draw connections between cases. Using ImmigrationOS, ICE can also monitor 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 at that time.

Pre-Crime Enforcement and Absence of Legal Rights

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 charged 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 oppose the slaughter of innocent people. It is the US government that has acted unlawfully and unethically.

The Amnesty report emphasizes the ways that technology companies and powerful states are colluding in the surveillance, control, and expulsion of minorities and migrants, as well as political dissidents 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 no refuge and no food. The investigation further shows that the US is mobilizing tech to strip asylum seekers and migrants of their fundamental rights, subjecting them to unjust imprisonment before they have a chance to defend themselves or ask for safety.

Individual Consequences and Reflection

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 persistent doubts about whether I can finish my degree before my funding is terminated. I have been forced to jump through hoops to access life-saving 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, told me that: “You’re just Black.” My Blackness made my status in the US conditional. 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 legacy of racial slavery and post-9/11 Islamophobia, I would get targeted.

With this AI tools in the hands of an administration that has little regard for legal protections, we should all beware. What is tested on minorities soon drifts into the mainstream.