That’s according to experts who spoke at a March 11 Fordham event. Governments are increasingly relying on AI and machine learning to handle visa applications, refugee claims, naturalization requests, and the like—raising concerns that citizenship could become commodified, said Kevin Jackson, Ph.D., professor of law and ethics in the Gabelli School of Business. 

AI Could Make Immigration More Transactional 

AI-based systems tend to be transactional and “prioritize applicants who can maximize economic utility for a nation-state,” he said. “Are we seeing a fundamental shift in the meaning of citizenship and the moral worth of individuals due to the rise of AI?”

He and his research assistant, Emma Foley, a Gabelli School graduate student, presented two ethics case studies: In the United Kingdom, an AI system for screening visa applicants reflected past pro-Western bias and discriminated against people from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, reinforcing racial and economic disparities in global mobility, Foley said. That system was suspended about five years ago after legal challenges. 

And an AI-powered initiative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), proposed in 2017, drew criticism for its “extreme vetting” of immigrants in America, monitoring everything from social media use and employment records to religious affiliations, Jackson said. 

The project, also dropped following legal challenges, “highlights how AI-driven immigration systems can redefine the moral worth of migrants by preemptively classifying them as threats on one hand or as assets on the other hand,” he said. “Making AI immigration decisions open to public scrutiny and to legal appeal are important.” (Today, DHS says it uses AI responsibly across a variety of functions.)

AI, Immigration, and Social Justice

Jackson and Foley spoke at Fordham’s International Conference on Im/migration, AI, and Social Justice, organized in concert with Sophia University in Japan and held at Fordham.

Faculty and graduate students, as well as alumni experts and others, spoke about how AI can enhance immigration processes but also about the potential perils.

Communication professor Gregory Donovan, Ph.D., suggested that AI might be used to provide legal assistance for migrants as they negotiate immigration processes, given the lack of enough lawyers to serve them. But even then, “It actually demands more human involvement.” 

“You’re going to need humans who are understanding of how trauma works, who are able to be there culturally and emotionally for someone as they interact with a chatbot to figure out their legal fate,” he said.

Retaining the Human Touch

Another presenter, Sarah Blackmore, LAW ’14, is a senior associate with Fragomen, an immigration services firm. She noted that AI can be helpful in immigration by streamlining administrative work and repetitive tasks like processing immigration applications, freeing up staffers to focus on “the more complex cases that need a human touch.”

That human touch is needed when, for instance, someone’s asylum case could hinge on fine nuances of translation and emotion and context, she said. “With AI, it’s really important, especially for sensitive things, that there is always this human oversight,” she said. 

She was answering a question by Carey Kasten, Ph.D., professor of Spanish, who noted that “so much of immigration law and asylum laws … have to do with the way you tell your story.” 

‘I Am Afraid’

A key element in those stories is fear—particularly, fear of gender-based violence, “one of the main factors pushing people out of their countries,” said Marciana Popescu, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate School of Social Service and co-director of Her Migrant Hub, an online information hub for women seeking asylum. Women are nearly half the population of globally displaced people, and 40% to 46% are under 18, she said during her own presentation. 

In her own work with migrants, the three most common words she has heard, she said, are “I am afraid.” She ended with a plea: “I am asking you, dear colleagues, that are looking into AI—think of AI as a tool that can expand sanctuary. This comes from the voices of the women, because it is [their stories that matter]most.”

“This is bigger than just protecting 2020. This is ultimately about defending democracy,” said Krebs, a keynote speaker on the last day of the 2019 International Conference on Cyber Security, held at Fordham Law School. 

Three years ago, the Russian government interfered with the U.S. presidential election through the creation of thousands of fake social media accounts, which spread fabricated information to all corners of the country. 

Krebs said his agency has been working to avoid similar strife in the upcoming elections. Over the past several months, he said CISA has been helping foreign countries improve their defenses against Russia, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of the techniques and tactics that the Russians use. Krebs anticipated that before the Russians strike the United States, they will most likely use somewhere in eastern Europe as a guinea pig, like Ukraine or Moldova. He also emphasized the importance of raising awareness of what the “threat environment” looks like and driving resources into defense methods, such as phishing campaign assessments. 

There are still problems at home. He said five states—Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey, and South Carolina—use voting machines that provide no paper trail of the votes. No paper ballots means no ability to audit the vote, he said. 

“We’ve got to get to a position where we can audit the vote, where we can understand what happened throughout the process,” Krebs said. “If you can’t audit the process, you can’t audit the network left or right, if you don’t know what happened … you’re not secure.” 

But there’s an easier way to combat Russian hackers—and it starts right at home. 

Last week, Krebs and his team released a website called war-on-pineapple.com: a simple, interactive five-step tutorial that shows Americans how Russian social-media efforts try to divide and troll them. 

“What we’re trying to do is raise critical thinking across the American people about how we’re being manipulated by foreign actors,” Krebs said. “We’re trying to engage the American people, educate on the tools, techniques, and capabilities. Not just Russia, but others that are getting into it.”

In the past and present, Russia has used social media to “undermine the very public conscious[ness]of the American people,” he said. They follow five steps: identify a divisive issue (one divisive issue is whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza, hence war-on-pineapple.com), create a conversation on social media, stir up angst, drive the topic into mainstream news, and then “take it real world.”

“They generate real-world activities. They actually get on social media platforms and schedule events,” Krebs said. “And not just a rally in favor of something—they also organize the counterprotests.”

He emphasized that more must be done to increase the resilience of the American people. The “war on pineapple” is only the beginning. 

“It’s up to every single one of us to engage, to increase awareness because it’s not one person. It’s not the federal government. It’s not a state or local official,” Krebs said. “It’s everyone that’s going to be in the effort to protect [the]2020 [elections]and defend democracy.” 

Speaking at the Lincoln Center campus on July 28 at a conference held by Fordham and the FBI, Mayorkas said cyber threat indicators—information used to identify cyber security threats—need to stop being traded by security firms as if they were common commodities.

“Look, we’re all in this together. Some of us are in it as a calling, some of us are nonprofit, and some are for profit. For those of you who are for profit, you have many streams of revenue. The cyber threat indicator should not be one of them. That needs to be a public good,” he said.

“Hopefully, we’ll get to a point where that become a public good and is no longer a for-profit commodity, and we can raise the bar of the entire cyber ecosystem in terms of our defense mechanisms.”

Mayorkas noted that the “seminal announcement” by the White House on Tuesday at Fordham detailed the government’s new approach to responding to significant cyber incidents. The directive features a framework with two priorities: a threat response, which is an effort to identify perpetrators and hold them accountable, and an asset response, in which the goal is to identify the nature of the attack, identify and help expel the perpetrator, identify the vulnerabilities that permitted the intrusion, and identify if there are other victims who need help.

The challenge, he said, is that a core principle of asset response is the dissemination of information as broadly as is needed. It’s extraordinarily important do this at network speed because attacks can be replicated with the click of a button, but he acknowledged that a trust deficit exists between the cyber community and the government, thanks in part to 2013 revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

“The idea of voluntarily providing information to the government still requires a bridge for many to cross, and I hope that we will all work very hard to overcome that trust deficit,” he said.

“Words, of course will not do it, but action, and bringing benefit to different communities will achieve it, and it’s a privilege for me to be a part of that effort.”

The new policy delineates the role that government agencies will play going forward in preventing and responding to potential as well as active cybersecurity incidents, said Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. She made her remarks at the opening session of the International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS), cosponsored by Fordham and the FBI.

“[The policy] commits to unifying the government’s response across agencies, and it emphasizes that our response will be focused on helping victims of cyber incidents recover quickly,” Monaco said.

“This directive establishes a clear framework to coordinate the government’s response to such incidents. It spells out which federal agencies are responsible. And it will help answer a question heard too often from corporations and citizens alike—in the wake of an attack, who do I call for help?”

The FBI will lead responses to any immediate threat (just as it does in cases of terrorism, Monaco said) to find out whether those responsible are terrorists, other countries, or criminals.

The Department of Homeland Security will assist the victims of an attack or intrusion, supplying federal resources to aid recovery and providing technical assistance to protect the attacked organization’s assets, bring systems back online, and decrease vulnerabilities.

Finally, the newly formed Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC), which operates under the Director of National Intelligence, will serve as the point agency for all cyber-related intelligence. Having a single entity integrating and analyzing this information will allow for more rapid and streamlined efforts to disrupt threats, Monaco said.

“In all these efforts, the framework we apply when considering the use of cyber operations is quite similar to how we approach other operations in the physical world. Any actions we take must be consistent with our values, and after we assess the potential for collateral damage and consider other potential options. We consider the likely reaction of the target, our allies, and other countries who may be affected, and we consider whether the effects of a cyber operation could lead to escalation and greater conflict,” she said.

“I believe we can do this. Humans invented cyberspace and we can manage the challenges it generates. Over the past seven and a half years, we’ve made tremendous progress. The framework and actions we’re putting in place today are another strong step forward.”

Monaco’s announcement followed the keynote address from James Trainor, assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, who stressed the importance of collaboration in the face of cyber threats.

Trainor cited the U.S. Intelligence Community’s annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, which for the last three years has ranked cyber threats as the No. 1 danger to national and economic security—a “bigger [threat]than standard forms of espionage and bigger even than terrorism,” Trainor said. “From where I stand, the issue is getting worse by the day.”

For this reason, it is critical to form strong partnerships among law enforcement, government agencies, and the private sector. The faster that a cyber threat or attack is reported to the FBI, the faster that those responsible can be caught and evidence preserved.

“We need to use indictments, engagements with foreign partners, diplomatic pressures, sanctions, technical disruption operations, and even actions taken at the World Trade Organization-level with trade operations,” Trainor said.

“In my view, pressure works… Our adversaries know we will come after them in more ways than one. The FBI is doing everything it possibly can at every level to make it harder for cyber criminals to operate. I believe that many of them are starting to think twice before putting their fingers on the keyboard.”

The sixth annual ICCS conference opened July 25 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus. Visit our news page for ongoing coverage, and read the full transcript of Monaco’s remarks here.