Borders between countries are often dangerous, violent places. From the sands of the Sahel to the islands of the Mediterranean, borders allow governments to define who can enter a country – often deciding whether a person can find refuge or is left behind.
Increasingly, borders are also spaces for governments and private companies to test new technology. But how is that technology being used? And what impact is it having for people on the move?
Petra Molnar’s new book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in The Age of Artificial Intelligence offers a sweeping portrait of how new tech, from surveillance drones to lie detection software, is transforming borders around the world.
A lawyer and anthropologist, Petra specializes in migration and human rights. She co-runs the Refugee Law Lab at York University and is a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
Just Security Podcast host Paras Shah recently sat down with Petra to discuss the book, which is available now from The New Press and wherever books are sold.
Show Notes:
Borders between countries are often dangerous, violent places. From the sands of the Sahel to the islands of the Mediterranean, borders allow governments to define who can enter a country – often deciding whether a person can find refuge or is left behind.
Increasingly, borders are also spaces for governments and private companies to test new technology. But how is that technology being used? And what impact is it having for people on the move?
Petra Molnar’s new book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in The Age of Artificial Intelligence offers a sweeping portrait of how new tech, from surveillance drones to lie detection software, is transforming borders around the world.
A lawyer and anthropologist, Petra specializes in migration and human rights. She co-runs the Refugee Law Lab at York University and is a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
Just Security Podcast host Paras Shah recently sat down with Petra to discuss the book, which is available now from The New Press and wherever books are sold.
Show Notes:
Paras Shah: Borders between countries are often dangerous, violent places. From the sands of the Sahel to the islands of the Mediterranean, borders allow governments to define who can enter a country – often deciding whether a person can find refuge or is left behind.
Increasingly, borders are also spaces for governments and private companies to test new technology. But how is that technology being used? And what impact is it having for people on the move? This is the Just Security Podcast. I’m your host, Paras Shah.
Petra Molnar’s new book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in The Age of Artificial Intelligence offers a sweeping portrait of how new tech, from surveillance drones to lie detection software, is transforming borders around the world.
A lawyer and anthropologist, Petra specializes in migration and human rights. She co-runs the Refugee Law Lab at York University and is a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
I recently sat down with Petra to discuss the book, which is available now from The New Press and wherever books are sold.
Hey, Petra, welcome to the show, and congratulations on the book.
Petra Molnar: Thanks so much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here.
Paras: I wanted to start by talking about your background. You're a lawyer and an anthropologist. How did you get interested in issues around people who are on the move?
Petra: Yeah, so I always knew I would be working with people on the move, I was and am a person on the move myself. And it just was a big motivator for me to figure out a way to be the most useful to this community, to my community and to other communities. I never planned to be a lawyer though, I was actually, I started off as a classical musician, if you can believe it, that was going to be my path. I started studying flute performance at the age of seven. And I was going to do that. And then I went to university and realized it just wasn't the right fit. So after one year of studying music performance, you know, after years and years of doing this, I was like no, where's the social justice? Where are the people? And so I did an anthropology degree instead.
And then my graduate work in anthropology and I worked at different refugee shelters in Toronto and Canada. And then I had the opportunity to pursue either more graduate work or go to law school. And I thought, you know, what's the best way to try and understand power and how it operates in society? Go to the source, go to law. So I went and yeah, I've been working on migration issues ever since.
Paras: And have you always understood that nexus between law and power? Because power can be located in in many different places? Right? How did you send her the idea of power in law?
Petra: I think it's, it's been personal for me, because I come from a migrant family and a single parent family, and also a very low-income family. And you just realize how the world is structured in a way that really is predicated on vast power differentials. And I was always wondering, why is that you know, why, why is the way that our world is built, felt, you know, so sharply by some people, and not so sharply by others. And I think that was really the motivator for me to try and understand the law. I never also had any, you know, experiences with family, friends who were lawyers, none of that, like those were not our circles whatsoever.
And it wasn't always easy, either. I remember when I went, and I started my first day of my JD, you know, I also went a little bit later. I was like, wow, I think I made a huge mistake. It felt like such an alien world, you know?
Paras: Yeah. I mean, I think every first year law student has at least one moment, if not more, mine happened to be around final season, when I thought I made a grave mistake. So you go to law school, and then you practice immigration law for some time. What was that experience like?
Petra: Yeah, you know, I think I knew early on that litigation probably wasn't going to be for me, but I wanted to get that training and get a sense of you know, what it was like to be doing court work. So after I got my JD, I worked at a legal clinic that specialized in violence against women, and we practiced in family law and immigration and refugee law. And yeah, it involved a lot of just frontline work, going to court going to tribunals, going to detention hearings. And it was amazing training. But I also just, you know, I think a lot of it is about knowing who you are and what kind of skills you can bring to the table and there was just something about doing direct court work that didn't sit well with me and I think it was yeah, it was seeing the kind of violence in the system day in, day out, I mean, it's so difficult to get anything done that benefits the people you work with, right in these systems.
And I remember this anecdote so clearly: I think I was crying after losing a detention review hearing or something like that. And this colleague of mine, who I really respect, you know, she came up to me and said, don’t worry, you know, it'll get easier, you're grow thicker skin. And at that moment, I was like, I don't want to grow thicker skin, I don't ever want to feel like this system is somehow okay, you know, and I think I just knew at that moment that probably doing this day in day out, going to court, just wasn't for me. So I then transitioned more towards the policy and academic work.
Paras: Yeah, I mean, it's such a striking comment, right? That you have to build this like level of calcification in order to do this work, because there's so much of it, and the systems are structurally set up to make it difficult, intentionally. So you start moving towards academic work, how did the idea for this book first appear? How did you think about it initially?
Petra: Yeah, so you know, this book at the intersection of technology and migration came as a complete accident, honestly, like, I'm not a technologist. Years ago, when I first started doing this work, I didn't even know really what an algorithm was, like, we're talking like Wikipedia level knowledge, or like, you know, learning as I go. But I was working at the University of Toronto as one of the research lawyers there at a time, and we just happened to hold this event on technology and power. And it was really eye opening. And then I started thinking, like, what's happening in immigration? I mean, are there programs or projects being used that we don't know about and started looking into it, and actually back in 2018, that's when this work started. Just crazy.
Now, it's like six years ago, I don't know where time is going. We actually uncovered that Canada was one of the first jurisdictions that was playing around with using AI and algorithmic decision making in its immigration procedures, without public knowledge, without anybody really being aware of this. And so we wrote this report called bots at the gate, which is still available. And I have to say, no one was more surprised than me at how much this little report got attention, you know, like at the UN, and then the government all these conversations, because it was one of the first attempts to link international human rights law analysis with technology and migration. And that's what really opened my eyes and was like, wow, okay, I really need to try and understand this from a global perspective. That's where the anthropology hat, I think comes in. And I got some funding, and then some more funding, to kind of grow this work and do comparative analysis across different borders. And yeah, then then it kind of slowly became a book. And now it's now it's out.
Paras: Wow. Well, it truly is a book that's global in scope, but it's also a book that's grounded in story. And in the author's note, you talk about your role as a storyteller and a story sharer. In documenting these stories and curating these stories, how did you think about your own role and your relation to power?
Petra: Yeah, I mean, storytelling is about power for sure. And I think it's sometimes not interrogated in that way. I mean, I feel incredibly privileged that I have been able to do this work for a number of years now and work directly with people on the move, who are impacted by the technologies and the issues that the book is about.
But it's also about I think, constant reflection about what our own role and positionality in all of this is, you know, for me, as someone yes, okay, with a migration background with all sorts of complex identities that I carry, like, many of us. I’m also now coming from a very privileged position of having affiliation, that, you know, big institutions having funding all of this. And what I see time and again, unfortunately, with lawyers, or storytellers, or researchers, or even journalists in the field is so much extraction, right, you kind of parachute in, you collect a bunch of traumatic stories, and you take them home with you and you build your career on that, you know. That is something that we really need to interrogate because there is a way to tell stories differently, or at the very least be aware of these massive power differentials.
Paras: Yeah. So what are some of those strategies? How did you try to do it in this book, which I think you did very well.
Petra: No, thank you. I mean, I think this is where my anthropology training really, really helped. And I'm so grateful for it. I think those of us who do ethnography are able to maybe, of course, we need to be critical of that discipline, too, because it's not without its pitfalls, but we spend a lot of time in places especially if you do relational work, and most of the stories in my book are based on long term relationships that you build with people. So it's not like a one off. But you know, you spend a lot of time together, you make meals together, you get to know each other on a deeper level. And, you know, for me, it was also really important to end the book by giving a friend and a colleague of mine an opportunity to tell his story. Not without its pitfalls, either, right.
The afterword is his, but we have to anonymize him in the end, because he has an ongoing legal case in Germany, he was in a refugee camp. He's from Syria originally, he lived in a refugee camp in Greece for many years. And then we collected this afterword through a series of WhatsApp messages. But then we had to anonymize him because of his ongoing legal proceeding. And that doesn't feel good either, right? Because you're stripping somebody of their agency. So there's this constant kind of back and forth, and this redetermination of how to do things that I think is part of the process, too, it's important to always ask those tough questions of how we do the work we actually do.
Paras: Yeah, that afterword, I found really moving. It's translated WhatsApp messages that are transcribed into the book. And so it is a great way to give a person agency, especially when systems have taken a lot of that power and agency away. And you're also very intentional about the photographs, too. How did you approach that?
Petra: Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm by no means a professional photographer. But for me, photos and visual material and audio material too, really help illustrate what's happening at the border. And also with the technology, because often what we talk about is really hard for people to grasp, right? A lot of the projects that I talk about in the book are sometimes not visible, right? How do you take a picture of an algorithm or something like that, right. So I employ a methodology that's very similar to you know, what, people who think about visual ethics, really kind of call for. For example, at the forest migration review, they have a really, really great photo policy where, then this is something we adopted with my colleagues as well, you know, we, for example, do not take pictures of you know, massive crowds of people or take photos of somebody in distress, or even of their faces. You know, often, if I can call out let's say, the UN or an international organization, you pull up a report, and it's usually a black or brown woman with a baby in like the worst set of circumstances that she'll probably ever find herself in. We try not to do that, like freezing somebody in a photo, and kind of memorializing the worst moment in their life, to me is very disempowering.
Instead, what I do is try and you know, share photos of the infrastructure: of some of the projects, of what the border looks, like sometimes of border guards too, you know, kind of studying up. But because we also work directly now with colleagues who are in displacement, and they are direct participants, or colleagues in different projects, that's different, because then they participate, they give consent, they really are the ones who drive some of the work and those faces we of course show. But for the purposes of the majority of the book, it’s very, very curated imagery. Yeah.
Paras: And speaking of infrastructure, so the book begins in the Arizona desert. And some of the technology that you write about is quite visible, it's manifested in physical space, and you write about Robo dogs that are in the Arizona desert and surveillance towers. Talk to the listeners here about the technology. What did you document?
Petra: Sure, yeah, I mean, so specifically at the US Mexico border, that's where the book starts. It's a really fascinating kind of context, because you can actually see some of this stuff, you know, at play. You can drive up to these surveillance towers that are an Israeli surveillance company that now dots the Sonora desert with these fixed integrated AI towers that sweep the desert and create this surveillance dragnet. But yeah, in probably one of the more surreal moments of my career up to date, and I have had many as I think you saw in the book. Yeah, it was, we were literally with some colleagues on the sands of the Sonora desert, when the Department of Homeland Security announced that they wanted to be bringing in these Robo dogs, these quadruped machines, you know, that's something out of like black mirror or some sci-fi movie, but they're now going to be joining this global arsenal of border tech. I mean, so it's, it's outlandish experiments like that.
But it's also, a lot of the broader infrastructure that the book documents, things like social media scraping before person even moves, you know, when they're still in their country of origin. There's also all sorts of technology that happens in spaces of humanitarian emergency or refugee camps, you know, things like biometric data collection, iris scanning, fingerprinting, all of that, and all sorts of other really, really problematic tech right at the border. You know, I talked about the AI surveillance and Robo dogs. There's also AI lie detectors, different drones, all sorts of things. And then the last class of technology too is the stuff that you are impacted by when you already arrive in a country; either carceral technology if you're an immigration detention, so things like, you know, ankle shackles, bracelets, things like that, that are electronic, voice recognition and voice printing software. And some of the, if I can put it this way, like less sexy projects to like visa triaging algorithms and all this stuff that happens, kind of under the lid of government procedures that we're not even really aware of. But it creates this kind of high-risk experimental laboratory where these technologies are kind of tested out on people on the move or at the border.
Paras: Why do you think that these spaces are the places where this experimentation is happening?
Petra: You know, I think we need to bring it back to the context, right? Like, if we're talking about immigration and refugee decision making, it's already extremely opaque and discretionary. I mean, the way that the law already functions in that space and the way the decisions get made, it really is so dependent on factors largely out of your control, right? Like you might have two officers look at the exact same set of evidence and render two different, it completely legally valid determinations. That's even without you bringing technology. Now that you start augmenting or even replacing human decision makers with machine learning algorithms, AI, surveillance, I mean, what is that doing in this kind of nexus of, you know, extremely high risk impacts on people's rights, and also very little accountability and oversight that's inherent that the border? The border becomes this kind of frontier zone of experimentation, where it's almost like this anything goes attitude, right? It's really important, I think, to look at it from that lens, because it kind of illuminates why certain projects get rolled out at the border and not in other spaces.
But I should say that's also changing, right? The kind of laboratory of border tech doesn't just stay at the border, you have the robo-dogs, you know, announced by Department of Homeland Security. And then later the New York City Police Department says that they want to once again, they were here before apparently, they once again want to roll out Robo dogs on the streets of New York. So there's this normalization, right, that happens with tech at the border and in these kinds of spaces of marginality or vulnerability, and then they become kind of normalized and introduced into public life.
Paras: Normalized with pride, also, these are not like necessarily hidden. I think the NYPD even put a press release out about it and was quite vocal in its decision to use this technology.
Petra: Yeah. And one of the dogs was even painted with black spots on it like a Dalmatian. Cute, right? Like, there is definitely this kind of pride in the technical solution ism that's become so normal.
Paras: Cute is one word for it. So one of the themes that you address across chapters in the book is the idea of immigration as a space and a system of discretion, and the lack of safeguards that are afforded to people who are within that system compared to criminal law, especially. How have some of the technologies, especially the use of artificial intelligence, to try to actually make immigration determinations playing out? What did you document there?
Petra: Yeah, so you know, that's actually where a lot of this work started on trying to understand how states were bringing in automated decision-making, different types of machine learning, or AI, that kind of class of technologies to augment decisions being made in the immigration system. So things like creating a visa triaging algorithm, or in other cases, you know, other jurisdictions are playing around using different kinds of decision making for even refugee determinations and things like that. And for me, you know, as someone who used to, like I was saying, practice refugee law, and someone who's been really concerned about the power differentials in this space, it just seemed hugely problematic.
One, because a lot of it was being done without public scrutiny, or any kind of, you know, human rights impact assessments, data impact assessments, things like that. And again, it seems like because immigration and refugee decision making is this kind of discretionary space, it allows for tools to kind of be played around with or piloted in a way that the state can go, yeah, it makes sense to do it here. And then there's also this really important nexus to national security, because as soon as you conflate immigration with national security, it allows the state to do even more right. And private sector interests then get involved, and then it really becomes this kind of free for all of introducing technology, again, without even having a public discussion about why, not even allowing journalists or human rights monitors to know the parameters of what's happening until after the fact and things like that.
Paras: The book is written like a lawyer and anthropologist wrote it, and I say that in the best way possible, meaning that there's both a rigorous application of frameworks and theories to the issues that you're documenting and studying. You map certain modalities of how to think about these questions on to the evidence. So one of those frameworks is data colonialism. What do you mean by that?
Petra: That is a really useful term that a lot of scholars have been using to again, highlight the kind of vast power differentials between the actors that develop technology and the communities from whom data is extracted, right. It again, breaks down the long lines of coloniality, and imperialism where Europe, North America, the so-called West, are places that get to extract data from other places in the world. For a variety of reasons, right. And to bring it back to the immigration case study, I had a chance to visit Kenya and East Africa to look at what's happening there when it comes to digital identity systems, for example, and how certain countries are really, really kind of pushing ahead with creating these different digitized identity systems without thinking through the human rights implications. And perversely, also excluding marginalized groups like the Nubians, or the Somali Kenyans, for example, in this in this case.
But then it also brings up questions of well, who actually benefits from this data collection? And why are we even creating so much data on communities and populations made marginalized by these historical forces? And again, it's no accident, right, that data is being collected in these deep ways also in refugee camps; with biometrics, with iris scanning, fingerprinting, creating these vast, interoperable, also databases that are then shared back with the West. And ultimately, it also becomes about like, what is the border doing? And what are bordering practices really doing? It is about exclusion, it's about the West being able to say: we want this group of people and not this group of people.
And so if you have technology and data collection, and data extraction, helping you with this, it really then makes it super clear that this is a project of othering, about those who are not welcome to come to America or to come to the EU. And that is kind of the deep underbelly of why so much data and so much technology is being tested out and applied in these spaces.
Paras: Yeah, and a deep underbelly that has real harms. So what are some of the practices that we've seen, especially from the UN refugee camps that have already led to actual harm in the world?
Petra: You know, it's interesting to interrogate the role of the UN and international organizations specifically, because they are a major driver in normalizing a lot of this technology. So, for example, refugee camps have become sites of data extraction and piloting of different biometric technologies. So iris scanning, fingerprinting, different types of biometrics that are being collected, and often being presented as a way to make the system more efficient, right. Okay, we're gonna click data instead of, you know, paper identity, and that will allow us to distribute food rations, for example. But a lot of refugees in, for example, refugee camps in Jordan, who were there from Syria, spoke about the fact that there is no informed consent, really, that you either have your irises scanned, or you don't eat that week. I mean, that's not free and informed consent. I mean, that is very, very problematic when you again, apply a kind of power analysis on it. Not to mention that, again, going back to what we were just talking about, this kind of disproportionate data gathering, this massive commitment to extracting as much data as possible without thinking through safeguards, can actually have profound ramifications. So for the Rohingya refugees who were escaping Myanmar, and ended up living in Bangladesh, now for many years.
The UN inadvertently collected a bunch of data from the Rohingya refugees, and then shared it with Myanmar, the country that they were escaping from. I mean, that is really, truly a massive data breach, that what it should have done is highlighted how again, it's so important to think, in that context, right, like what will happen to a Rohingya refugee if their data is shared with the repressive government that they're fleeing. But unfortunately, again, we're seeing this kind of move towards more data and more technology, and this kind of disproportionate application of these projects without thinking through the real harm that it's doing to people on the ground in this moment.
Paras: Many listeners might wonder how they can get involved, and you end the book with a chapter on strategies of resistance. And that includes everything from strategic litigation to divestment from certain tech companies. What can listeners who want to help?
Petra: Thanks for asking that, you know, because I think so much of my work to date has been looking at the sharpest edges of this stuff. And it can get very, very depressing. Trust me, I've been there, still am there most days. But it's also only part of this story, there is a lot of resistance, there's a lot of joy, a lot of creativity, a lot of contestation of border tech. So I think part of what we all need to do is just become aware of what's happening, learn more about the technologies, maybe buy my book!
But also following the work of many activists and scholars and people on the move themselves who are doing really amazing work. And if I can just plug one of our projects, one of the probably biggest privileges of my career to date was co creating the migration and technology monitor, which started off as an archive and a platform to hold some of this work on border tech. But it has since grown into a community. And we incubate a fellowship program for colleagues who are on the move and in situations of displacement to tell their own stories on what it means to be working on border technologies.
And we started this fellowship last year with five people from Mexico, Venezuela, Uganda, Malaysia, Nepal. And this year, we just started our second cohort, we have a colleague in Palestine, South Africa, two people from Sudan, and another one in Mexico, looking at, you know, the gamut of issues from the real sharp edges of border surveillance with let's say, the CBP one facial recognition app at the US Mexico border, to using technology in different ways to empower communities. But really, it being a participatory project. So our colleagues and displacements are the ones who are in the driver's seat, kind of driving the projects themselves. And I think that's actually a major way that we can resist some of these technologies in their human rights, you know, the violations that are inherent in the way that this is all developing, by listening to the people who are affected, by centering their expertise, by redistributing resources, and making space for people's stories.
Paras: That’s so important. And I think you also draw a lot of hope from the people who you've met a lot of the way in writing this book. And one phrase that really struck me was that you said, the people who you've met, some of them have turned spaces of death into spaces of hope. What do you mean by that? And how do you also keep hope?
Petra: Yeah, I mean, you know, it was really remarkable, because if you do check out the book, you'll see I mean, each chapter is kind of oriented around either a human rights violation, or particular border or something bad that's happening, right. But in every single space, there are people who show up and help, whether it's, you know, 80-year-old Samaritans in Arizona, instead of, you know, lounging on some retirement community, they're doing water drops in the Sonoran Desert. Or people who are, you know, farmers at the Polish Belarusian border, opening up their doors to human rights lawyers and journalists like in the morning and serving us honey cake.
I mean, it's incredible the solidarity and the kindness of people in these spaces. And, and that's really what gives me hope. It's actually something I'm thinking about maybe capturing and doing some follow up work. Because again, like the joy and resistance is such a big part of all of this. And it's really important to remember that humanity does win out, you know, I think if people have a chance to meet and chat and get to know each other, I think that really is what pushes the world forward. And technology can be so dehumanizing, right? I think it can make everything seem so cold and sharp. And instead, what we need to do is cultivate spaces of togetherness where we can sit in like the messy complexity of human life and human migration and learn from each other.
Paras: Yeah, I think it's about trying to make those really sharp edges, a little bit rounder, a little bit gentler, a little bit softer. And, for me, part of that was reading this book and learning from the amazing work that you've done. It takes a village to write a book like this. What did you learn along the way?
Petra: Definitely, writing a book is I mean, it's beyond what I could have ever hoped to do, or dreamed to do. And it also just cannot be done alone. You know, I mean, so much of the work that I did throughout the book, and before, I mean was done in collaboration and in close partnership with so many people, journalists, other researchers, but it's really, ultimately, about you know, friends and family hold you up. When things get so dark that you just are not really sure how to continue. I also happen to find a little puppy on one of the islands where I was working in Lesbos, and I named him joy. So I'm have joy at home now, every day. But I think, you know, ultimately, it's about also feeling a sense of responsibility to the stories and the people that you meet and you work with. And finding that is a way to kind of propel you forward. Because it is a responsibility to be a story steward or a story sharer in this kind of way.
Paras: Well, the book does an incredible job of doing all of this. I couldn't put it down. It was so thoughtful. So well done. Petra, congratulations again.
Petra: Thank you so much. It was a real pleasure to speak with you and have a chance to share about the book.
Paras: And you end the book with a poem, so I'm hoping you might be able to read that for our listeners.
Petra: Sure. I would love tom so the last chapter on hope begins with a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. It’s called “Red Brocade.”
The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.
Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.
No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.
— Naomi Shihab Nye, “Red Brocade”
Paras: This episode was hosted and produced by me, Paras Shah, with help from Harrison Blank.
Special thanks to Petra Molnar. You can read all of Just Security’s coverage of human rights, technology, and migration on our website. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.