We need a new conversation and a new imagination about immigration: not just here in the UK, but in every country around the world. Economic and social precarity has made populations in host countries fearful of immigrants, even as technology has made it easier than ever to cross geographical borders.
As I’ve written before in this newsletter, even developing countries – whose citizens and economies are beneficiaries of outward immigration – are increasingly hostile to inward immigration.
So in January this year, we invited Petra Molnar, a lawyer and anthropologist specialising in migration and human rights, to engage with our newsroom as openDemocracy’s first ‘Scholar in Residence’. Over the next six months, Petra will attend newsroom meetings, write for our website, and serve as a thinking companion for our journalists as we tackle one of the biggest stories of our time.
As a first step, we have collaborated with Petra and the Migration Tech Monitor to bring this special issue of our weekly edition, with a collection of stories written and produced by people on the move: From the West Bank, Issa Amro writes about how Israeli border tech has become a tool for ethnic cleansing. Rajendra Paudel draws on his experiences spanning from Nepal to Saudi Arabia to lay out technology’s role in exploiting workers. On the flipside, Matthew Lubari describes how technology is a vital link to the world outside his refugee camp in Uganda, while Aqila Abdelkarim Ali explains how she set up a mental health platform for those living in refugee camps, and Simon Drotti examines the need for refugees to be in control of their own narratives.
Quite often, conversations about migration are quickly reduced to camps ‘for’ or ‘against’ migration. Our intention with this edition is to sidestep this reductive binary – if only for one weekend – and consider how our world is being shaped by the fluid interactions of people and technology.
As always, we love comments from our readers, but this week we also invite you to contribute to the Migration Tech Monitor’s Manifesto for Technology. As Petra and her colleague Florian explain in an article, this ‘living’ document began when a group of people with lived experience of migration met in Nairobi last year. Read on to learn more – and to have your say.
As a not-for-profit newsroom, we rely on your contributions to keep the lights on, so do consider making a donation to support our work!
Nothing about us, without us: Reclaiming power in an age of border technology
In November 2025, something rare happened in Nairobi, Kenya. People who are usually treated at worst as data points or risk scores and at best as ‘beneficiaries’ of innovation gathered as equals to collectively reflect on how technology is reshaping migration, borders, and power.
The occasion was the first in-person gathering of the Migration and Technology Monitor (MTM) Fellowship, a global initiative that supports people with lived experiences of migration and occupation to investigate, document, and challenge the technologies governing their lives.
Fellows travelled to Nairobi from across Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Some arrived after long, costly visa processes. Others were prevented from coming at the last minute, a reminder that borders do not pause even for those invited to discuss them...
Israeli border tech is not about security, it’s a tool for ethnic cleansing • Issa Amro
I am sitting around a fire outside my home. Above me, a drone circles my house, stopping every few minutes to hover some 15 meters away. Its camera points directly at me, unsubtly filming me in my own yard.
This is not unusual. I am filmed, photographed, tracked and surveilled wherever I go.
In Hebron, the largest city in the occupied West Bank, where my family has lived for generations, the presence of the Israeli state is everywhere. For the 215,000 or so Palestinians here, there is no such thing as privacy.
We are the unwilling test subjects for advancements in methods of population control. Israel uses technology as a tool for ethnic cleansing, designed to drive us out of Hebron’s city centre and make way for the Israeli settlement expansion taking place in breach of international law...
Fake visas and complex databases: Tech’s role in exploiting migrant workers • Rajendra Paudel
When I first left Nepal to work as a salesman in Saudi Arabia, my contract said my new employer would provide accommodation. It didn’t state what kind of accommodation, but I didn’t give it much thought. I assumed it would be reasonable, perhaps a shared room offering basic dignity.
On arrival, I found I was expected to sleep on the floor of one room with five other people. At that moment, I realised that the problem was not only the company’s treatment of its migrant workers, but also my own lack of clarity and awareness.
My contract had been vague, and I did not know how to ask the right questions.
That day was the start of my understanding of how important it is for migrant workers to have information, clarity, and awareness. Since then, I have worked closely with migrant communities across South Asia, the Gulf, and Southeast Asia, delivering training and awareness programs on workers’ rights, employment contracts, digital safety and fraud risks...
A broken lifeline: Fixing humanitarian aid’s missing link • Mathew Lubari
In late 2016, soon after I arrived at Uganda’s Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement, a friend of mine was charged 200,000 Ugandan shillings ($55) to regain access to a phone he’d been locked out of. It was more than he could afford, and the technician refused to explain how the repair was carried out.
That moment was a turning point for me. For refugees and migrants like myself, phones and other digital technologies are an invaluable lifeline; they’re vital for staying in touch with loved ones left behind, for learning, job opportunities, social cohesion, and healing. Yet repair and maintenance services remain largely overlooked in humanitarian aid – and replacing a broken phone isn’t a realistic option for many refugees.
Broken devices are often discarded prematurely or carried long distances to cities in the hopes of finding someone to fix them at a somewhat affordable price, worsening refugees’ digital exclusion, financial strain and data loss...
Healing beyond borders: Digital mental health support for refugees • Aqila Abdelkarim Ali, Somaliland
My understanding of trauma did not begin with a textbook or a diagnosis. It grew little by little over many years; from the sounds of missiles and bombs we had to sleep through every night to watching my father be carried to us, soaked in blood, a collateral damage of war.
In Somaliland, displacement was not a single event but a continuous state of being. We moved again and again, escaping danger or searching for so‑called stability across places that never felt like home. With each move, something was lost: peace, routine, normality, and a sense of belonging.
I did not immediately recognise what I was carrying. At first, it felt like constant exhaustion, fear without a clear reason, and an overwhelming sense of pressure to stay strong. Over time, I became numb, I withdrew, I felt lonely even when surrounded by people, trapped in a life shaped by uncertainty, and deeply desperate in moments I could not explain to anyone else. There were days when the weight of survival left no room to process grief, fear, or sadness...
Life beyond the stats: The refugees reclaiming their stories • Simon Drotti
As refugees, we are frequently counted but rarely heard. When journalists write about where I live, the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda, they often first note that it is home to half a million people, including more than 280,000 South Sudanese refugees. From there, our lives continue to be reduced to statistics: the number of arrivals, of tents, of food rations, of education places.
While these metrics matter, they don’t at all mirror the human complexity that marks the life of a refugee. Each person here carries a distinct history made by war, displacement, survival, hunger, loss, resilience, humour, grief, creativity, faith, and contradiction, almost none of which makes it into spreadsheets.
The fact that we ended up here is the result of many, many inspiring stories, and all the time we are living through new ones. Refugees face many barriers to telling our narratives: limited access to technology, lack of safe platforms, language exclusion, fear of misrepresentation, fear of loss of culture and simply not being asked...
MANIFESTO FOR TECHNOLOGY AS A TOOL TO STRENGTHEN CIVIL SOCIETY
“Nothing About Us Without Us”
We love comments from our readers, but this week we also invite you to contribute to the Migration Tech Monitor’s Manifesto for Technology.
