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When I initially came in the United States four years ago to start my doctorate at Cornell University, I believed 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 akin to that enjoyed by diplomats—a mobility that had enabled me to work as a journalist unscathed across West Africa’s restive Sahel region for years.

The situation deteriorated after I participated in a pro-Palestinian protest on campus in September last year. We had brought a job fair to a standstill because it included booths from companies that provided Israel with armaments used in its campaign in Gaza. Although I was there for just a brief moment, I was subsequently banned from campus, a sanction that felt like a type of confinement since my residence was on the university’s upstate New York campus. While I could continue living there, I was forbidden from accessing any university premises.

In January, as Donald Trump came into power and issued a series of presidential directives targeting non-citizen student protesters, I abandoned my home and sought refuge at the secluded home of a professor, worried about the reach of ICE. Three months later, I voluntarily left to Canada, then traveled 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 whereabouts. I did not return to the UK because accounts indicated that pro-Palestine journalists had been detained there under anti-terrorism laws, which filled me with apprehension.

Surveillance and Visa Termination

I expected my arrival in Switzerland would mark the end of my ordeal. But a fortnight later, two distressing emails appeared in 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 validated my hunch that I had been under surveillance and that if I attempted to re-enter the US, I would likely be arrested by ICE, similar to other student protesters. But the lack of transparency surrounding these processes and the absence of due process to challenge them raised more questions than they answered.

Was there any correspondence between Cornell and US government agencies prior to my visa being canceled? What did the most powerful government want with my Google data? Why did the US authorities go after me? Had they constructed a case of suspicion 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 Surveillance and Predictive Technology

I may never receive full answers, but an investigation by the human rights organization sheds new light on the concerning ways the US government has used shadowy AI tech to mass-monitor, observe, 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 predict 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 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 wide margin of error, “can often be discriminatory and biased, and could lead to incorrectly 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 establish relationships 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 Due Process

This all exists in the pre-crime space that has grown exponentially since the launch of the US-led “war on terror”—detain now, ask questions later. To this day, I have never been accused or tried for any crime, or for displaying antisemitic behavior. As demonstrated 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 exercised my constitutional free speech rights to oppose the slaughter of innocent people. It is the US government that has acted unlawfully and immorally.

The Amnesty report highlights the ways that technology companies and governments are colluding in the surveillance, control, and expulsion of racial others 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 devastated area of the dead and rubble, leaving Palestinians with nowhere to go and nothing to eat. The investigation further shows that the US is mobilizing tech to deprive asylum seekers and migrants of their fundamental rights, consigning them to arbitrary detention before they have a chance to defend themselves or ask for safety.

Individual Impact and Reflection

While I am far from regretting my actions, I now live in a month-to-month limbo of precarious living arrangements and nagging doubts about whether I can finish 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 immune to 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 document 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 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.