Author: Christopher Bao (Page 1 of 2)

Though we’ve been in Germany for just two days, something that genuinely surprised me is how Germans follow U.S. politics. Granted, the sample size has been quite biased, but hearing about how people in Germany watch the developments in the U.S. reminded me of the enormous foreign influence that U.S. politicians can wield. Though, I suppose it makes sense that Germans would pay such close attention to politicians like Trump when Germany’s far-right party, the AfD, is so closely taking notes from the American right.  

In many other ways, too, Germans are far more well-versed to interact with Americans than the other way around: every German I’ve met so far understands English to some degree, even if they profess otherwise. 

Yet for all the ways that Germany is accessible (and perhaps even familiar), there are also some things that feel quite distinct from the U.S. As we toured the Nuremberg museum today — replete with descriptions of the ways major Nazis were put on trial in 1945 — I thought of Susan Neiman’s Learning from the Germans. Neiman argues that while Germany as a country has had a reckoning with its past crimes, particularly in World War II, the U.S. has not had a similar reckoning with its own racist past. I found it especially interesting that our tour guide, Maik, described his work as public history — reckoning with the past is not just a job for historians in the archives, but it’s also a project for the wider public. I’m looking forward to learning how companies like Bayer also think about the role they played in war crimes and crimes against humanity. I wonder, too, to what extent this obligation can be found in German education, and whether that is something that will change in the coming years, especially in regions where the AfD is gaining power, as education is a power delegated to the states.

Another surprising thing about Germany: the closing of many stores on Sundays. As we walked to the subway station to visit the site of the Nuremberg Trials, the commercial streets were mostly quiet. 

Also surprising was learning from Michael, a union representative and organizer who joined us for dinner, that the right to strike is constitutional (except for civil servants). Another thing which is quite different from what we’re familiar with in the United States is that unions in Germany are not dependent on citizenship. Yet despite the strength of the unions, some economic issues in Germany, like significant wealth inequality, are very reminiscent of the U.S.  

Some less surprising things: the late-night culture, the number of smokers in Berlin, the bureaucracy, and the rain. I had several close calls with puddles on the Berlin sidewalks as I walked to and from The Festival of Lights, of which we luckily were able to catch the last day. Of course, this is but one of many events in Berlin; even when it’s cold and dark, the people here find reasons to gather on the streets.

The German far-right political party Alternative for Germany made history last month when it won the election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. Though the party, known by its German initials AfD, fell just short of an absolute majority, it may still be able to implement parts of its anti-immigration platform. 

Among the tools the party hopes to use? Artificial intelligence.

The manifesto released earlier this year by the Saxony-Anhalt association of the AfD proposes the development of a state-level strategy for “technological upgrading, digitalization, and AI.” This plan, which appears under the heading “Immigration and Remigration,” also includes a funding program to encourage small businesses to utilize more technology.

The end goal, the document notes, is to “prevent the immigration of skilled workers from culturally alien backgrounds.”

“What I took from this is that they just really want to emphasize that they don’t want any kind of immigration, even skilled migration,” said April Reber, a postdoctoral researcher at Marburg University who specializes in the history of the AfD. 

Experts, however, are skeptical that such a policy would work.

“I don’t think that’s really realistic,” said Jonathan Olsen, a professor of political science at Texas Woman’s University who has extensively studied the AfD’s political strategies. “Germany has a declining birth rate, right? So there are going to be fewer Germans to go around to fill these positions, and then we’re looking at things like paying into the pension system. Germany needs skilled labor.” 

A recent study from the Berlin Institute for Population and Development found that Germany’s working-age population is projected to decrease by 4.7% by 2045, as first reported by DW. 

Yvonne Giesing, an economics lecturer at The University of Western Australia Business School who has studied the impact of automation and AI on German immigration, said that the Saxony-Anhalt AfD’s AI policy is “more like their dream and not what is actually realistic.”

In fact, Giesing noted, such a policy of embracing AI may actually backfire and harm native-born workers disproportionately, since many migrants are employed in fields that require manual labor and may not be easily replaced by AI. 

According to The Federal Statistical Office of Germany, the five largest occupational groups among employed first-generation immigrants (accounting for 35% of employment) are transport and logistics; medical and healthcare; cleaning; business management and organization; and sales. 

In some instances, AI may even help migrants — both unskilled and skilled — navigate traditional obstacles in employment more easily, further countering the AfD’s goals.

“Another thing I think is really interesting with AI at the moment is that it really reduces any kind of language barrier,” said Giesing. “In the past — I’m now thinking like 10, 20 years ago — one big problem of migrants in the labor market would be the language issue. But I think with AI, I really see that this area is breaking down.”

The AfD is not the first to propose technologization as a way to reduce immigration. In 2024, the Tory politician Chris Philp suggested that British businesses should use more robots instead of migrants. Earlier this year, Team Mirai, a tech-centered political party in Japan founded by software engineers, said that the increased use of AI could result in fewer foreign workers. 

Reber also cautioned that the manifesto may also not be a true representation of the policies that voters care about, given the length and exhausting process of making such a document.

“They vote on each issue. And it’s very, it takes a really long time. And usually people are just done, and there are side conversations going on, and sometimes they’ll just be like, ‘yes, we support this,’ and they won’t even really spend a lot of time on each statement.” 


Yet the Saxony-Anhalt AfD’s stance on AI can also be understood as one of many ways the party is trying to wield limited state powers. The core issue of the party, immigration, is one that is legislated at the federal level, an arena where the AfD does not yet have control. However, states in Germany reserve significant powers like education, healthcare, and cultural policy. 

Olsen argued that the Saxony-Anhalt association of the AfD could add AI policy to its better-known tools to make life more difficult for migrants.

“There’s really not much they can do,” said Olsen, referring to the AfD’s limited ability to influence national immigration policy. “What they can do is try to make things as uncomfortable as possible for migrants in these states.”

Still, the overall impact of AI on labor, especially skilled labor, is largely unclear. Siddhi Pal, who researches AI policy at interface, a Berlin-based think tank specializing in tech policy, noted that AI’s effects have yet to be demonstrated in many occupations. 

“I also think that AI is reaching the workforce in phases. We first saw software engineers, for example, being heavily impacted,” Pal said. “AI is not at a stage where we see it across the labor market everywhere in practice.”

But before even getting to executing an AI policy, the AFD may first need to sell its constituents on it: Some members of the party are completely unaware that their politicians are making the connection between AI and migration.

“I even messaged a few AFD members
I know who are in different states, and they had no idea,” Reber said. “They were like, ‘What are you talking about? AI has nothing to do with migration.’”

This week’s reading had me thinking about “access” in political reporting, and how many reporters prioritize having these lines of connection above all else. In the U.S., for instance, many political reporters were excited for Trump to return to office in 2024 because he was unpredictable, made politics an exciting spectacle, and would pick up calls from any reporter (even the ones he repeatedly calls out in public as liars, like Maggie Haberman). As Panievsky points out, when this platforming becomes uncritical, like when journalists run statements from candidates without calling attention to the lies and distortions, reporting can fuel populism. The reading also made me think about how the coverage of political extremism is a potential example of “balance” leading us astray to “false balance” — by trying to get an accurate temperature check on the range of ideologies in a region, journalists can overestimate the salience of extremist viewpoints and inadvertently lend them credibility. This is commonly referenced in regards to the media’s coverage of anthropogenic global warming when the phenomenon was first being discussed by scientists, but after reading these chapters I can see why it’s also a useful framework to thinking about political extremism.

I’ve also been thinking about the reading in context of the White House’s announcement over the weekend that they would investigate the TV press pool for not covering Trump. Of course, this is remarkably ironic, given all of Trump’s criticism of the press and his actions to restrict reporters from the White House, but it also underlines a point Panievsky makes: for all the derision and hostility that populist leaders demonstrate toward the mainstream media, they still recognize its utility and its power in creating a mythology around populism. It reminds me, too, of what Jan-Werner Müller said in class last week: the far-right has never run out of scapegoats, and the media is one of the most low-risk, high-reward targets for any aspiring autocrat. 

While Panievsky argues that we shouldn’t abandon objectivity and instead should “reinterpret it in ways that align with our normative expectations from them” (101), I don’t find that idea to be all too persuasive. For instance, I’m skeptical of the suggestion that media outlets should increase their usage of fact-checks — we’ve seen major outlets like the NYT embrace this approach, but for the most die-hard supporters of far-right movements, nothing their politicians say could be wrong. In fact, the NYT or another mainstream outlet calling it a lie would probably only embolden the idea that there is a deep-seated conspiracy to oust and shame their preferred candidate. I am in agreement with Panievsky that we still need rigorous, thoughtful reporting that aims to report the truth, but we seem to lack the necessary modes to make impact with reporting. 

In the 258-page manifesto released by the AfD this year lies an unusual vision of artificial intelligence. The far-right party argues that they will embrace the technology and broadly adopt the technology. One of the main motivations they list? Replacing migrants.

The AfD may see this as killing two birds with one stone: embracing AI can make Germany more competitive on the global stage of technology while providing a road to greatly reduce unwanted migration. Experts, however, are much more skeptical about the idea — they note, for instance, that many migrants are employed in service industries, which have thus far proven difficult to replace.

But even if the AfD’s view on AI is just political bluster, the party’s focus on the technology gets one thing right: AI is shaping life for migrants in dramatic ways, and it may continue to do so in unexpected ways. For instance, language barriers, which for a long time have been obstacles to integration and upward mobility for migrants, are greatly reduced by developing AI technologies. Navigating traditionally obscure and difficult government documents may similarly prove significantly easier. 

I propose reporting this story through interviews with staff and clients at the ReDI School of Digital Integration in Berlin, a non-profit that has focused on teaching migrants and refugees important digital skills for their new lives. The unique mission of this school promises an interesting lens through which to tell a complex story. Since an initial wave of coverage at their founding a decade ago, there’s been little to no attention in the English-language media, which leaves important questions unanswered. How is AI changing how ReDI teaches skills to migrants? Are the skills being taught changing? And is AI actually making life easier for migrants, or is it complicating their experiences in unforeseen ways?

To my knowledge, no outlet has yet covered this unfolding story of migration and AI in Germany. The reporting on the AfD’s manifesto has focused largely on its social and political vision for Germany, with little attention to the technological implications. Those who have reported on the connections between the AfD and AI have written primarily on how deepfakes and other technologies were used in elections. And the existing work on the role AI plays in migration has been about the way it factors into decisions about whether to let migrants into the country — little work has been done on what happens to the migrants already living in Germany.

I see several other paths, should my story about ReDI not work out. I plan to interview union leaders for their thoughts on the AfD’s proposal — what do they think are the ramifications of such policy, and how do they feel about it? Young migrants are also an interesting population — is AI changing what kind of jobs they feel confident in? Regardless of the eventual angle, I think that the way AI is shaping life for migrants in Germany is an important one that is yet to be told. 

Money sent home by migrants to low- and middle-income countries has nearly doubled in dollar terms between 2015 and 2025, according to a new United Nations report, though the increase is smaller after accounting for inflation. 

The report, which was released on September 14 by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, found that the transfers, known as remittances, reached a value of $728.6 billion in 2025. This is an increase of about 94% from $375.6 billion in 2016, though an inflation adjustment using the U.S. Consumer Price Index puts the increase at about 45%.

“This is a huge number, but it isn’t surprising,” wrote Samuel Huckstep, a research analyst at the Center for Global Development, in response to a request for comment. “The numbers have been gradually growing year on year: even during Covid-19 remittance flows were quite robust to the shock.”

Families receiving remittances spend that money on a variety of critical needs, from consumer goods to long-term investments, noted Gaurav Khanna, an economist at the University of California San Diego. The benefits can even spill over: A study he co-authored, published in April, found that increased earning power for migrant workers from the Philippines resulted in long-term gains in income and education for entire communities. 

“What we’re trying to argue is that if the migrants are sending the money back home, then the gains can actually be spread much more widely than just their families,” said Khanna in an interview.

These latest findings also come at a time when some historically migrant-friendly governments are souring on immigration. Immigration judges in the United States, for instance, have ordered the removal of more than 440,000 people seeking asylum in President Donald Trump’s first 19 months back in office, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Germany, another popular destination for migrants, recently extended immigration controls at its land borders until March 2027. 

“In response, we have not seen a major reduction in remittance flows,” said the report’s lead author Pedro de Vasconcelos at a press conference, referring to restrictive migration policies. “There’s always a delay, also, that you need to take into account.” He further noted that the report does not include the most recent data on remittances (the report does not include data from 2026). 

Despite these headwinds against immigration, remittances are likely here to stay, said Patricia Fernández-Kelly, a sociologist at Princeton who studies global migration. 

“I’m pretty sure that remittances will continue to be a very important source of revenue in some of these countries,” she said in an interview.

Some researchers also say that governments can have an important role in improving the economic impact of remittances. Huckstep says that in particular, destination countries for migrants can create significant benefits for migrants and their families by reforming migration policy.

“Currently this isn’t even a factor, but the potential is massive,” wrote Huckstep.

Correctiv’s report on a secret meeting of far-right individuals to discuss “remigration” was interesting in both how the piece came about (undercover reporting that was possible due to a concerted team effort and a little bit of luck) and how the piece was presented (as a play). I find the content of the report to be surprising in its level of detail, but the effort to “reclaim” the country itself is sadly a familiar playbook at this point, at least for Americans under the Trump administration. I think the piece also gives a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes of wealthy people’s political decision-making, where they may profess certain values in public but want to support potentially unpopular views through discrete uses of their money.

I was also interested in the InfoMigrants piece and the tensions that exist in what AfD wants. For instance, the piece notes that they want skilled workers, though they also want stricter requirements for non-EU skilled workers. I wonder, however, whether they would even have the talent necessary for some of their jobs if they are being so restrictive. The BBC noted in March that Germany faces a shortage of skilled workers. There are also several planks that closely parallel U.S. deportation policy. For instance, the piece notes that migrants who have been found to be a danger in some way will be deported — though as we’ve seen in the United States, immigration enforcement can and do deport individuals with no criminal record, and there’s often no means of redress.

The CNN piece notes that even with specific state victories, the AfD cannot necessarily implement all of its extreme measures. However, the Courthouse News Service piece illustrates how their power can still be felt, as politicians like Friedrich Merz try to compromise with the far-right in order to out-maneuver them. The issue with this approach is that it’s hard to stay moderate in trying to out-right the right while also appealing to the extremist voter base, and you risk permanently alienating a moderate voter base. I wonder now, given the AfD’s victories in recent state-elections, whether there will be more pressure placed on the Brandmauer. In some instances where the AfD has such a commanding victory, might some parties not change their minds about working with them so they can deliver on common policies?

Something that was surprising to me was how, per The Economist piece, the AfD is actually generally unpopular among young people, and the party performs the best with voters in the 40-60 age range. Given all the headlines about youth radicalization in Germany, I would have thought the vote share among young people to be much higher, though I suppose the numbers may look different in a decade or so as the teenagers being radicalized now eventually grow old enough to vote in these elections.

Money sent home by migrants to low- and middle-income countries nearly doubled in dollar terms between 2016 and 2025, according to a new United Nations report, though the increase is smaller after accounting for inflation. 

The report, which was released on September 14 by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, found that the transfers, known as remittances, reached a value of $728.6 billion in 2025, an increase of about 94% from $375.6 billion in 2016. An inflation adjustment using the U.S. Consumer Price Index puts the increase at about 45%.

“This is a huge number, but it isn’t surprising,” wrote Samuel Huckstep, a research analyst at the Center for Global Development, in response to a request for comment. “The numbers have been gradually growing year on year: even during Covid-19 remittance flows were quite robust to the shock.”

Families receiving remittances spend that money on a variety of critical needs, from consumer goods to long-term investments, noted Gaurav Khanna, an economist at the University of California San Diego. The benefits can even spill over: A study he co-authored, published in April, found that increased earning power for migrant workers from the Philippines resulted in long-term gains in income and education for entire communities. 

“What we’re trying to argue is that if the migrants are sending the money back home, then the gains can actually be spread much more widely than just their families,” said Khanna.

These latest findings also come at a time when some leading destination countries for international migrants are tightening immigration rules and enforcement. Immigration judges in the United States, for instance, have ordered the removal of more than 440,000 people seeking asylum in President Donald Trump’s first 19 months back in office, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Germany, another popular destination for migrants, recently extended immigration controls at its land borders until March 2027. 

“In response, we have not seen a major reduction in remittance flows,” said the report’s lead author, Pedro de Vasconcelos, at a press conference, referring to restrictive migration policies. “There’s always a delay, also, that you need to take into account.” The report does not include data from 2026. 

Despite these headwinds against immigration, remittances are likely here to stay, said Patricia Fernández-Kelly, a sociologist at Princeton who studies global migration. 

“I’m pretty sure that remittances will continue to be a very important source of revenue in some of these countries,” she said.

Some researchers also say that governments can improve the economic impact of remittances through better migration policies.

“I would emphasise that countries of destination have the opportunity to foster huge positive externalities via their migration policy, and that they should proactively try to maximise those externalities,” wrote Huckstep. “Currently this isn’t even a factor, but the potential is massive.”

I thought that Azmat Khan’s two-part series was a remarkable effort of reporting — I’d previously read it for an OSINT class, but I’d forgotten just how long she spent doing a combination of document analysis and on-the-ground reporting (and even obtaining the documents was extraordinarily difficult and something that would be completely out of reach of most people, even though FOIA is supposed to be a tool for citizens to hold the U.S. government accountable and transparent). I think Khan’s reporting on the chat logs accompanying military assessments of strikes in the air wars was particularly interesting, as it demonstrated how soldiers, many of whom are presumably young, could treat the taking of human lives as a video game. It reminded me of reports a couple years ago that the U.S. military was using video games to market the armed forces to teens — there’s a pattern here of the gamification of war, as well as interesting signs of the layers of detachment that technology facilitates. In a similar vein, I thought it was interesting how Khan framed the aerial approach (vs. a boots-on-the-ground approach) as a decision that resulted in less public opposition and less scrutiny from journalists. A country may only have incentives to be accountable for mistakes when the bodies of their own citizens are at stake. Finally on these pieces, I thought it was terrifying, though unsurprising, that the military seemed to have no plans for self-correction or review throughout the course of the campaign.

The Euronews article about German officials deporting people who they said had criminal records was also interesting. I think the difference in the treatment of migrants vs. native populations when it comes to crimes is worth examining further. The native population can be fined or imprisoned (and often the aim is, at least nominally, rehabilitation), whereas with migrant populations, there doesn’t even seem to be a pretense of trying to integrate people into that country’s society — instead, governments often would rather foist that problem onto another country, a displacement that creates brand new cycles of instability and violence.

I thought from the readings it was generally shocking how haphazard some of the government decisions are. There seems to be a really wide margin of error acceptable to immigration authorities, which is quite alarming considering the scope of the lives at stake, as evidenced in the Reuters piece about Afghan refugees in Pakistan. I was particularly struck by a quote in the piece from a legal advisor who characterized the decision-making process as “simply about luck, good or bad.” Still, when governments cannot be counted upon, unexpected private individuals step up, like Martens in the piece in The Times. That he was “nuanced but conservative” on migration did not stop him from offering sanctuary to refugees. Still, individual efforts to make change in some way are unlikely to supplement real governmental policy, I think, pointing to a significant lapse in governance. 

A common idea in this week’s readings is that children suffer in a multitude of ways during war. In A Faith Under Siege, for instance, we hear about how the Russian state wounds, kills, and abducts Ukrainian children. “Rules of war” are thrown aside altogether, as suggested by the example of a church with the word “children” written outside in chalk, which was attacked by the Russian military regardless. Even kids who are not physically harmed by war, however, aren’t able to live a peaceful childhood. The NYT article provides a quite sobering look at how children’s books, which we may think of as a medium to tell happy stories about friendships and families, can instead be used to deliver an otherwise incomprehensible reality. I was reminded of a museum on incarceration I visited for a Princeton trip, which featured children’s literature explaining why prison meant that children could not see their parents. In warfare, there is a “new normal.”

The way in which the Russian state uses the church and religion to justify its aims was fascinating. In particular, I thought the image in the documentary of priests blessing a missile was so absurd that it could have been satire. I’d be interested to find out exactly how intertwined the Russian state and church are, and how the church changes and adapts its ideology (and from where these changes come from) in order to justify atrocities.

I was also interested in the way technology has seemingly made war less asymmetrical. The Reuters podcast, for instance, notes that drones are comparatively very cheap technologies compared to missiles or tanks, and they can inflict disproportionate damage with the right methods, allowing Ukraine to put up a fight against Russia, a country with significantly more manpower and money. Even volunteers can be mobilized for the cause, as Deb’s Substack notes. The logical extension of some of the technologies with AI, though, seems uniquely unsettling: the possibility of warfare without humans “in the loop” seems to be a completely different level of armed conflict, and I wonder how that would square away with questions of responsibility: it’s already very hard to hold perpetrators of war crimes to account in the status quo — how would we even approach accountability if AI systems are responsible for these crimes?

Finally, I thought Panievsky’s book nicely explained patterns in the war on media. In particular, she identifies part of the new rhetorical strategy as framing journalism that does not align with populist goals (whatever they may be at the moment) as betrayal, which I found interesting. In a sense, journalists betray their subjects constantly, since the stories that they produce often present different accounts from stories that their subjects hold as truths (I think it was Janet Malcolm who explored this idea most thoroughly). However, Panievsky identifies how the wounding of feelings goes from happening on an individual level to a group level, and it’s in that change, the homogenization of “us” vs. “them,” that fuels populism.

One thing that struck me about the readings was the tendency for dictatorships to document their brutality. Kingsley, for instance, notes that a photographer codenamed Caesar (now known to us as Fareed al-Madhhan) was tasked by the government to take photos of victims in detention centers. This suggests a bureaucratic, even clinical approach to keeping track of brutality. Mrie, on the other hand, writes that government soldiers leaked videos of torture to “instill fear by showing us what awaits us inside detention centers if we dare to challenge the government.” Given this view, it seems that the documentation can be attributed to a feeling of being above the law — torture, and similar exercises of power, are trophies for the regime.

I also noticed in the readings the complex familial ties that factor into decisions about leaving and/or staying, and even whether to protest. Again, Mrie is a quite obvious example of this, wrestling with the decision to speak up or stay with her family, and then eventually grappling with guilt and anger over the news of her mother’s death. The Washington Post article explains that even for well-settled Syrian doctors in Germany, they’re torn between a desire to return to a potentially unstable home and a desire to stay — one of the interviewees, Rania Kadib Alban, points out that Syria is her home, but her children call Germany home. This, of course, hasn’t stopped politicians from being eager to stop incoming refugees and force current refugees who aren’t as integrated into the society out of Germany — it strikes me, as The New Arab piece writes, an “indecently hasty” policy proposal that would affect possibly hundreds of thousands of people. The recent victory by the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt will no doubt change the calculus for Syrians and other refugees, and I’d be curious to see how this story develops over time. 

A topic I’d like to learn more about is what Kingsley mentioned as “an organized system of mass resettlement,” a hypothetical solution that Kingsley says would have alleviated pressure on Europe’s infrastructure while also allowing humane treatment of refugees. I’d be curious to know more about the behind-the-scenes debates that politicians and policymakers had over how to address the influx of refugees, and I wonder what feasible (in hindsight) policy proposals might have been shot down due to political unpopularity. And, if the EU’s treatment of migrants and refugees should be considered generally a failure, what countries and policies can be held up as successes?

Finally, on the journalistic level, I thought the variety of approaches was quite fascinating. There were the pieces that leaned to “hard news” and analysis, like the Slate and The New Arab pieces, but I found myself most interested in the pieces of reportage that told stories through characters, especially Gopal’s book, which reminded me very much of the kinds of pieces The New Yorker publishes — character and quote driven, but with the journalist’s own observations playing an important driving force.