Welcome to MTM’s Newsletter

Dear friends,

My name is Petra Molnar and I am the coordinator of the Migration and Technology Monitor. As everyone in the human rights space, our small but growing multinational community is startled by the outcome of the US election. Racism and anti-migrant sentiments are on the rise, not just in the United States, but all around the world. Governments spend billions on the development of technologies that are designed to make borders more violent and make it as hard as possible for people to reach safety and exercise their right to claim asylum.

Digital technologies now impact every aspect of human migration. From biometric data collected in refugee camps, to drone surveillance at the border, to algorithms deporting students by mistake, technologies used in migration are often high-risk and unregulated, exacerbating historical discrimination and systemic racism. And in the geopolitical 'AI arms race,' all of these technologies do not stay at the border - they infiltrate our cities and schools and affect us all.

Kos Refugee Camp, 2022

At the Migration and Technology Monitor, we observe the development of technology, focusing on people on the move* and communities living under occupation. We are building a community of experts on these issues and foreground professionals with lived experiences of migration and occupation to help re-shape the narrative on the use of modern technologies, shed light on opaque private-public partnerships, and explain how the development of technology deliberately bypasses our fundamental rights. However, when designed for and by affected communities, technologies can also show a promise to help people on the move.

We work towards transparency, accountability, and participation - speaking truth to power while finding connections and growing our community.

Border Tech in Times of Upheaval

Bethlehem, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Spring 2023

Migration continues to be a highly contested political issue around the world. 74 walls and counting now divide us from one another, augmented by a growing turn to digital technologies to supplement border enforcement. Technologies like drone surveillance, algorithmic decision-making, and even sci-fi seeming projects like robodogs at the Mexico/US border or AI lie detectors piloted in Europe are part of a global violent border regime that has claimed thousands of lives. And powerful actors like corporations and the private sector continue to benefit, with the global border industrial complex estimated to be close to  trillion dollars by 2031.

Surveillance has also long been used to repress. After the December 2024 fall of the Assad Regime in Syria, footage coming out from the recently liberated Sednayah prison complex is a stark reminder of the gruesome cost of government surveillance used to oppress, brutalize, and kill thousands, creating the largest refugee movement.

Now, with the advent of the second Trump Administration, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the rise of nationalist populism in Europe. technologies continue to play a crucial part in the politics of fear. For example, in the United States, Trump has already signaled the ramping up of border surveillance, utilizing the immigration detention system expanded under the Biden Administration, and opening up the Oval Office to private sector influence.

At the Migration and Technology Monitor, now more than ever, we remain committed to creating spaces of collaboration, care, and co-creation of knowledge. We started as an archive and a platform in 2020 but quickly grew into a community of collaboration, care, and co-creation of knowledge. And now finally with some much needed administrative support, we are starting a newsletter to share with you some of our work.

On our multilingual platform available in Arabic, French, Spanish, and English, you will find a border tech tracker, resources, and visuals on border technologies. However, our flagship project has been our fellowship program for colleagues-on-the-move.

Fellowship Program

Since 2022, we have incubated ten colleagues-on-the-move from Mexico to Sudan to Palestine for a year long fellowship. And this fall, we have launched our THIRD fellowship for people-on-the-move to tell their own stories on what matters when it comes to border technologies.

Are you a person-on-the-move or living under occupation? Learn more about our fellowship and do not hesitate to reach out with any questions. There is still time to apply. Florian Schmitz, journalist and pedagogue working with us at the Monitor is the point of contact and applications are due December 31st, 2024!

Check out some of the work that our previous cohort of fellows has done:

• Learning Circle with the Migration Technology Monitor and the Mozilla Foundation

• The Border Chronicle: The Digital Border Wall: A Q&A with Journalist Verónica Martínez about the CBP One App

• Al Jazeera: Refugees in Malaysia worry government tracking system a ‘trap’, by MTM Fellow Wael Qarssifi (need an expert on Syria? Consider contacting Wael)

• Download the Memory Scroll Digital Archive by MTM Fellow Simon Drotti

• Voices of Venezuela project by MTM Fellow Nery Sanaella

• Follow the work of social media influencer and MTM Fellow Rajendra Paudel empowering migrant workers from Nepal

And stay tuned for updates on our current cohort of Grace Gichanga, Mathew Lubari, Mona Shtaya, Gamil, and Mariana Ranjel and Judith Cabrera at the Border Line Crisis Center.

Town Hall on Migrant Justice Surveillance

Are you a migrant justice organizer or a person-on-the-move worried about increasing state and private surveillance as a result of your work? Are you concerned you may be a target for deportation or spyware?

On December 19th at 12pm EST, join us with the Refugee Law Lab and the Citizen Lab for a conversation on migrant justice surveillance in the Age of Trump 2.0. and beyond.

Register here

We have many exciting things in store for 2025. We will send a monthly newsletter, informing you on current developments and bringing you news from our growing community. Please follow us on Instagram, Facebook , Twitter/X (for now), and Bluesky, too.

And - if you don't wish to receive this newsletter, unsubscribe below and it's done.

- Petra

On Behalf of the Migration and Technology Monitor
Incubated at the Refugee Law Lab, York University

Walls at Ritsona Camp, Greece, 2022

*Note about language: Wherever possible, at the Migration and Technology Monitor, we use the term "people-on-the-move" or “people crossing borders” to expand the terminology commonly used when we discuss human migration and how migration management technologies are experienced. This deliberate use of more inclusive terminology does not seek to undermine the fact that refugees face particular vulnerabilities and often experience higher risks and harms as a result of migration management technologies. It simply highlights that at the end of the day there are people at the center of it all. Moreover, all of us may in one way or another be affected by migration management technologies as we cross borders and move across the world. While its greatest impact is on traditionally marginalized communities such as refugees and asylum seekers, the ecosystem of migration management technologies affects us all.