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When I first arrived in the United States four years ago to start my PhD at Cornell University, I thought I would be the least likely person to be hunted by federal immigration agents. As far as I could tell, holding a British passport seemed to grant a sort of immunity similar 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.

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

In January, as Donald Trump assumed office and issued a set of executive orders aimed at non-citizen student protesters, I left my home and went into hiding at the secluded home of a professor, worried about the reach of ICE. 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 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 filled me with apprehension.

Surveillance and Immigration Status Revocation

I hoped my arrival in Switzerland would signal the conclusion of my ordeal. But a fortnight later, two distressing 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 “received and responded to legal process” 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 surveillance and that if I attempted to re-enter the US, I would likely be arrested by ICE, like other student protesters. But the secrecy surrounding these procedures and the absence of legal recourse to challenge them provoked more questions than they answered.

Was there any correspondence between Cornell and US government authorities 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 constructed a narrative of suspicion based on my years working as a journalist covering the US-led “war on terror”? Was I targeted because I was Black and Muslim?

Artificial Intelligence Monitoring and Predictive Technology

I may never receive complete answers, but an investigation by Amnesty International sheds new light on the concerning ways the US government has used shadowy 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, reportedly scours 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 search request has been made. It is possible that my reportage—on topics ranging from Guantánamo to drone strikes in the Sahel and the role of British intelligence agencies in the Libyan civil war—was marked. The organization notes that predictive technologies have a high rate of inaccuracy, “can often be discriminatory and biased, and could lead to falsely framing 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 establish relationships 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 block my re-entry into the country at that time.

Predictive Policing and Absence of Legal Rights

This all exists in the pre-crime 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 displaying 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 killing of innocent people. It is the US government that has acted unlawfully and immorally.

The Amnesty report emphasizes the ways that technology companies and powerful states are cooperating in the monitoring, management, and expulsion of racial others 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 wasteland of corpses 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, consigning them to arbitrary detention before they have a chance to plead their case or seek safety.

Personal Impact and Thoughts

While I am far from feeling sorry for my actions, I now live in a uncertain state of uncertainty of precarious living arrangements and persistent 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, reminded me that: “You’re just Black.” My Blackness made my status in the US uncertain. And because I am also Muslim and document these identities, it does not make things easier. 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 technology 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.