Mikhail’s The Beekeeper was a totally arresting piece of writing. Putting aside the horrific accounts and shattering poetry of the book, I was curious about how it portrayed the role of information within this conflict. 

We see firsthand the consequences of lacking information. Villagers such as Elias, not knowing the state of the conflict and being unable to assess the chance of danger to themselves, wavered on whether to leave their house or stay and wait out the conflict; when deciding to leave, Elias was then confronted with the decision of which direction to travel in to reach the top of the safe mountain (e.g. 83). Whether or not to trust Daesh officials often depended on more information than villages had; they were told never to trust the fighters, but when they showed up and made promises, local individuals seemed unable to do anything but take them at their word, even when doing so led to their death. At its most extreme, this appears to be the outcome of a lack of information, which compounds on lack of political or military power that left localities totally merciless at the hands of Daesh. 

The information made available with cell phones seems to be a powerful mediating force through the chapters we read. Women are bought and sold via Telegram, and then escape by obtaining access to cell phones that they can use to call for outside help. The internet creates the platform for a universal medium of exchange for slavery: physical markets act as secondary mechanisms as Daesh fighters first encounter women through their cell phones from wherever they are. At the same time, it also acts as a universal means of escape from that system, rendering space relatively meaningless once internet connection is established. If one is lucky, one can enter an internet cafe down the street and find a way to arrange one’s escape. And, of course, satellite imagery available through GIS systems serve as an open-access tool for Abdullah to plan how to free captive women, even when he cannot visit the places of captivity themselves. This de-territorializing of terror and liberation makes boundaries in this book feel strangely open considering the circumstances: in theory, and in practice in some of the cases we read about, an avenue to freedom exists even within enemy territory by walking out on the street and making a call. I suppose this underscores the lack of Daesh’s control of the area, but I do think technology in this case acted as an additional destabilizing force. 

On another note, I both grated at and appreciated Mikhail’s restraint at providing context. We are so often taught to ensure that the reader is never lost, that they must be told all the context needed to understand the story and be oriented at all times. The book doesn’t spell out events such as the Iran-Iraq war, or even the history behind Daesh’s invasion, putting the responsibility on the reader to put in the work to research gaps in their knowledge on their own. The reader almost had to earn the right to understand the context behind the stories of the book in their full complexity, and they gained the motivation to make this effort by the emotional intensity of its prose. This approach does have the downside of breaking immersion, and I would like to discuss how to evaluate this tradeoff more in class.

PRINCETON—Germany’s refugee population decreased in the first half of this year, from roughly 3.55 million 2024 to 3.50 million, according to government statistics released by Die Linke (The Left Party) last Friday.

Germany has not recorded a decline in refugee populations since 2011.

The decrease is likely the result of a conflicting set of immigration policies enacted over the past few years that has opened a path to citizenship for some and closed that path to others, augmented by changes in migration flows that have affected Germany’s refugee groups.

This shifting landscape has perhaps most affected refugees from Syria, who make up one of the largest refugee group in Germany. Fleeing war and autocracy, these individuals began to arrive in Germany in the mid-2010s after then-Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed them to come.

Up until recently, Germany’s government implemented policies to support these migrants and integrate them into German society. Among these policies was an overhaul of the citizenship process in 2024, which allowed refugees to apply for naturalization five years after their arrival to Germany, replacing the previous eight-year requirement. According to Hannah Alarian, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida, this policy has opened the door for far more refugees to apply for citizenship, including Syrians.

Indeed, in the past six months, 83,150 Syrians, including many refugees, obtained German citizenship, as reported by Deutsche Welle.

Once refugees are granted citizenship, the German government no longer includes them in refugee statistics. “This is a quite effective way of reducing [refugee] numbers,” said Benjamin Etzold, a migration scholar and Senior Researcher at the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies.

Still more Syrian refugees have voluntarily left Germany and returned to their home country since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024, according to Alarian. Ertzold argues that this trend has also contributed to Germany’s latest refugee count.

Yet the decline in national refugee numbers may also come from the German coalition government’s recent crackdown on immigration. Bolstering border security and ramping up migrant deportations, the government has attempted to limit entries and send a negative signal to prospective migrants.

Indeed, after a 50% drop in asylum applications was reported occurred in the first six months of 2025, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, a member of the center-right Christian Social Union (CSU), claimed this reduction was due to his government’s policies.

The coalition government has also targeted Ukrainian refugees residing in Germany, seeking to divert these refugees to other countries. After Ukrainian refugees began to claim benefits from the Bürgergeld, Germany’s state unemployment plan, the ruling parties made a plan to replace access to the Bürgergeld with the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act payment, which provides fewer benefits. Additional plans include eliminating the fast-track citizenship pathway for skilled immigrants.

However, critics have claimed that these punitive policies rarely meet their intended objective of reducing migration. “They only make journeys more difficult or dangerous, more costly for people,” Etzold said.

If anything, they may have encouraged refugees to seek citizenship for protection. “People are also afraid of losing rights and their status and being forced to return eventually,” Etzold said.

Analysts predict these factors will continue in the coming years, as the conservative coalition government continues to restrict migration.

“This is really concerning for the people on the ground,” Alarian added. “I think they get lost a lot in this conversation.”

Tallinn, Estonia – In the past week, Estonia and Poland have raised alarms over alleged airspace violations by Russian fighter jets and reconnaissance aircraft, prompting Germany and Sweden to scramble jets. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to defend Poland and the Baltic states if Russia attacks. The incidents mark a sharp escalation in a war that many hoped might be inching toward diplomatic solutions.

These aerial violations come amid renewed peace talks and mounting international pressure on Russia over its war in Ukraine. They signal a strenuous test of NATO’s resolve along its eastern flank. As the violations accrue, so too do diplomatic strains and the risk of miscalculation which could derail nascent peace initiatives even as civilians continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing war.

Incidents

On Friday, September 19th, Estonia accused Russian fighter jets of violating its airspace, crossing into NATO territory without filing flight plans or mainitng contact with air traffic control. Germany sent two Eurofighter jets alongside two Swedish Gripen fighters to track down and photograph a russian IL-20 reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea. 

Earlier this month, Poland reported that more than 20 Russian drones entered its airspace over the night of September 9. Also, two Russian fighter jets were accused of violating the safety zone over the Petrobaltic drilling platform in the Baltic Sea. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland would not hesitate to shoot down objects that clearly violate its territory, although he cautioned against hasty responses in less clear situations. 

Reactions

U.S. President Donald Trump commented publicly: when asked if the U.S. would defend Poland and the Baltics in case of a Russian attack, he replied simply, “Yeah, I would.” This affirmation underscores NATO’s mutual defense commitments even as the alliance grapples with how forcefully to respond. From the NATO/EU diplomatic side, the French issued a strong rebuke calling this a “blatant violation of international law”. 

A Changing War

While diplomatic firestorms rage over airspace breaches, the war inside Ukraine continues with destructive attacks. Overnight strikes targeted the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, reportedly using at least 10 aerial bombs. Schools, kindergartens, and factories were hit. Three civilians are reported dead, according to Ukrainian authorities. 

These air raids reflect the increasingly multidimensional nature of the conflict: while front-line battles remain important, longer-range attacks by Russian aircraft and drones are now tools aimed at disrupting civilian life, infrastructure, and morale. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces continue counter-attacks, drone raids on Russian logistics hubs, and operations aimed at securing border regions. The intensity of these skirmishes and air assaults underlines that peace talks, while discussed, remain fragile.

Peace Talks

Despite the escalation, there are signals of diplomatic engagement. Russia has offered to extend the New START nuclear arms control treaty by one year after it expires in February 2026, though it conditions further reductions or adherence on U.S. reciprocity. Some Western leaders have cautiously welcomed the offer, seeing it as a possible opening for broader negotiations. 

But many analysts warn that unless airspace violations and attacks on civilians stop, trust will erode. European capitals are pushing for clearer rules of engagement, greater communication between militaries to avoid miscalculation, and enhanced surveillance and air defense over vulnerable borders. The UN Security Council has been convened to examine Estonia’s airspace complaint.

Regarding potential escalation between Russia and really all of NATO there’s a perception that its just more bark than bite. Philip Mwendwa a Princeton student offers: “I think there’s a lot of tension, but… he’s more calculated than that… it’s more to divert attention.” Still on potential spillover, Sakina Tanko, a 20 year old student living in Hamburg says “The mood is a bit heavier. Yes some worry it could get closer bit still [it’s] just more kinda background worry.” But things do hang in a precarious balance

The Stakes

For NATO and its eastern members, the key challenges it faces are credibility and deterrence. If Russia perceives that violations illicit with weak responses, it may continue pushing boundaries. On the other hand, overly aggressive responses risk escalating into open conflict. Poland’s government has made clear it will shoot down obvious violations, but cautions restraint and consultation with allies in more ambiguous situations.

For Ukraine, these developments are yet another indicator of the war’s growing unpredictability. Civilians are forced to endure air raids even far from the front line; infrastructure continues to be damaged; and the hope for peace is frequently undercut by military actions that inflame rather than calm tensions.

Outlook

As this pattern of aerial incursions and reprisals continues, the war in Ukraine increasingly spills into NATO territory, not just in rhetoric but in action. What begins as recon flights or drone overflights could lead to serious incidents if response mechanisms are misaligned or slow. Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts, while not halted, are walking on a tightrope.

Peace talks may offer a path forward, but the current week’s developments serve as a warning: unless violations are addressed and lines of communication strengthened, the risk of unintended escalation remains high. For now, the skies over Eastern Europe are as much a battlefield as the ground in Ukraine.

This week’s readings highlight the layered challenges of migration, beginning with the decision to leave, the uncertainty of the journey, questions of what life will look like if resettlement is possible, the fear of permanent separation from loved ones, and the struggle to remain connected to one’s homeland. They also continue what was featured in past weeks’ readings, as they demonstrate the weakening in cooperation among countries part of the European Union, a severing that ultimately shaped and worsened the migrant itself as Kingsley claims in The New Odyssey.

The readings emphasize that escaping danger does not mean the worries of migration ever truly end, the immigrant experience is an ever-evolving journey. This is reflected in the stories of Syrian doctors weighing whether to return after Assad’s fall in the Washington Post, and in Hakeema Taha’s visit back to her Iraqi village, where she honored family members killed by IS fighters while she herself had found refuge in Germany, as portrayed in the ARTE documentary.

If I could title this blog, I would title it “Vomiting Party” as I believe it metaphorically represents the experiences of many of the refugees we are reading about. The journey can be exhausting, sometimes even nauseating, as was the case for Hashem al-Souki in the Kingsley reading, who was so crammed in a wooden dinghy heading to Northern Europe with other migrants that in route ‘everyone’s clothes [were] caked in other people’s vomit, each [had] paid more than $2,000 to spew over fellow refugees.”

However, even after you have concluded this journey to Northern Europe and possibly resettled and feel some sense of peace, the vomiting continues. Not from fellow refugees, but from politicians like those in the AfD in Germany for example or civilians telling you to go back home, and that your presence is hurting the country. What they don’t recognize is that many of these migrants don’t have anything to return to. Many migrants have had to pay the price in metaphorically vomit and money, but the stories of Hashem, Hakeema, and more show us that people can rise above all the hatred.

While the Odyssey metaphor is clear, I thought of The Handmaid’s Tale and the parallels between Hashem’s story and June’s more often. June may be a fictional character but Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, has claimed that everything that occurred in the book has happened at some point in history or real life. Both lose autonomy to political systems beyond their control, Hashem dragged away from his children by armed men, June torn from her family by Gilead. Both were able to escape but contemplated doing so, the guilt of leaving loved ones, and the grief of watching their homelands collapse. 

Both of their stories resist ostracization, humanizing migrants in The New Odyssey and survivors in The Handmaid’s Tale. As Kingsley writes, “in some ways they are the lucky ones, since they have been allowed to live.”

The Al-Monitor article on the Yazidis in Germany and the Islamic State atrocities presents the same paradoxes as every other atrocity done in the name of religion. No line in the piece was more poignant than Tulay’s daughter whose torture was “‘punishment’ for Tulay’s failure to ‘properly’ recite the Quran.” Among Muslims in other parts of the world from Sri Lanka to the Balkans you don’t hear torture of people who don’t recite the Quran. But there are extremist elements everywhere: Christian extremism like the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, Hindu extremism in India against Muslims, and perhaps Kahaneism in the Jewish ultra-right.  So perhaps it’s not about religion but just about people. Because in political ideologies in both the extreme left (The Terror post French revolution) and the extreme right (Mussolini) we could cast blame on liberalism and conservatism. So perhaps at the end of the day economic, political and cultural factors are more at play in the terrorism. 

The Kingsley reading is great because it offers perspectives crucial to this immigration discourse that gets lost in the airwaves.  For one he tells us that “there is a crisis, but it’s one caused largely by our response to the refugees, rather than by the refugees themselves.” In all this rise of right wing anti-immigration rhetoric and the ensuing political meltdown we’re seeing not just in Germany but in all of Europe and America as well, the fact that refugees are only 500th of the population isn’t discussed. Kingsley also reveals that immigration is not simply a Western problem. People from war torn, repressive, and/or impoverished countries like Iraq. Syria and Libya, 86% of refugees are in the developing world. Europe is only just waking up to a “crisis” that’s been going on. 

For me another interesting theme continues to come up again and again. The threat to “european” ideals that the crisis is creating. The threat to the European Union as we know it with free border movement is facing a litmus test. And the principle of sharing the burden of member states is being called into question. This has been clear since a week or two ago when we started talking about Germany and their suspension of asylum controls and reinstating of border controls. Now learning about Italy and Greece nudging boats towards other countries due to failed summits to get other states to help them with the influx reveals another contour to the threat the EU faces to its integrity and tradition.

September 22, 2025

BERLIN – Two German Eurofighter jets intercepted a Russian surveillance plane flying through international airspace over the Baltic Sea on Sunday, NATO officials said, in the latest of a series of tense encounters with Moscow’s air force. 

On Sunday morning, the German air force stationed at Rostock–Laage airport in Northern Germany received NATO orders to investigate a Russian aircraft “without a flight plan or radio contact”. A pair of Eurofighters from the NATO Quick Reaction Alert Force was scrambled from the base to identify the aircraft flying close to NATO airspace. After identifying it as a Russian IL-20m surveillance aircraft, the two Eurofighters handed over the escort to two JAS-39 Gripens from the Swedish airforce, which completed the operation. The action followed NATO’s standard procedure for incursions: intercept, identify, escort, hand off.

“It’s definitely not accidental. These systems operate under quite good control, so it’s not accidental,” said Jacob Shapiro, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. 

The incident occurred during days of heightened tension due to encounters between Russian and NATO air forces. On Friday, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes near Vaindloo Island. Similarly to the IL-20m, the aircraft had no flight plan and were unresponsive to radio communications. Under NATO’s Baltic Air Policing, with Allies rotating through regional airbases, Italian F-35s took off from Ämari, Estonia, to intercept and escort the Russian jets out of the Alliance’s airspace. The incursion sparked outrage across the Allies: Estonian PM Kristen Michal requested Article 4 consultations under the North Atlantic Treaty, which members can invoke when they believe that their territorial integrity or security has been compromised. The consultations, scheduled for this Tuesday, will address the recently growing number of Russian airspace violations.

The Russian Ministry of Defence is yet to comment on Sunday’s occurrence. However, the Ministry has denied accusations related to Friday’s incursion, declaring on Telegram that the “the flight was conducted in strict compliance with international airspace regulations and did not violate the borders of other states.”

Julian Hayda of the Ukrainian advocacy group Razom said the incursions test more than air defenses. “Russia is probing Europe’s resolve,” he said. “The danger is that governments hold back weapons for Ukraine in order to keep them at home. Why give up scarce air defences if Russian planes are showing up in your own skies?”

Hayda added that the incidents reinforce a lesson Ukrainians have already drawn. “We cannot count on others for our survival,” he said. “But Europe and the United States also need Ukraine to learn how to fight wars of scale, because future conflicts will look like Russia’s — wars of attrition.”

Professor Shapiro identified two major plausible causes for Russia’s violations: intimidation over NATO’s support for Ukraine, or intelligence gathering. “Poking NATO air defences, you’re creating the need for them to talk, communicate, coordinate, all of which create opportunities to collect on their tactics, to identify potential nodes that could be attacked in case of conflict,” he explained.

The Baltic region sits at the frontline between NATO and Russia, making its skies uniquely tense and vulnerable. Narrow corridors of international airspace thread between the Baltic states and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, leaving little margin for errors when military aircraft fly without flight plans. NATO has strict protocols on how to approach such incidents, but the past few weeks have registered a pattern of increasing incursions that is worrying the Allies. In September, Russian drones have already violated the airspace of both Romania and Poland, causing the latter to also invoke Article 4 consultations.

German and Swedish officials framed Sunday’s interception as routine, part of NATO’s standing quick-reaction system, but emphasised the seriousness of repeated Russian flights without flight plans or radio contact. In Tallinn, pressure is growing: Estonia is calling for a stronger deterrence tactic from NATO. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna highlighted that this Friday marked the fourth violation of their national airspace in 2025, but defined this one as “unprecedentedly brazen.” 

Moscow, by contrast, insists the West is exaggerating and stands firmly by the claim that its aircraft operate lawfully over international waters. The clash of narratives will feed into NATO Council discussions in the coming days, with Baltic governments lobbying hard for a firmer collective stance. 

Professor Shapiro emphasised that there is still not enough information to evaluate the Allies’ response. “It’s impossible to know whether the response has been appropriate or not without having access to some of the underlying intelligence on Russia’s decision making and their command and control processes,” he said.

The flare-up over the Baltic brings the Ukrainian war back to international attention, reminding Europeans that the conflict reverberates far beyond the front lines. Each interception signals a larger struggle of NATO’s credibility on its Eastern flank. Strategically, NATO has to maintain vigilance and reassure frontline Allies, while avoiding miscalculations that could spiral into direct confrontation.

What struck me in the first chapters of The Beekeeper was how small details carry the weight of entire lives. When Mikhail pauses over the letter N, it is the symbol ISIS painted on Christian homes, a single red mark that forced families out after fifteen hundred years. She doesn’t tell her students this, but as a reader, the contrast hits hard: something as innocent as a letter suddenly becomes a marker of death and exile. That tension between the ordinary and the horrific runs throughout Nadia’s story, where picking tomatoes for her thirsty children leads straight into capture by ISIS.

What stayed with me most was Nadia’s survival after being sold, raped, and forced to make rockets with her children. The details of Nadia’s story are unbearable (a five-year-old daughter tasked with tying detonation lines!) but they also reveal how war seeps into every corner of life. Even escape was fragile, depending on the kindness of a shopkeeper who let her use the phone and a smuggler who knew the right back roads. Reading this, I kept thinking about how survival isn’t an ending. Nadia herself admits she still wakes up at night from nightmares. Survival is ongoing, messy, and never fully secure.

This sense of uncertainty echoed in the article about Syrians in Germany. Anas Modamani, who once symbolized Merkel’s “We will manage it,” now has a German passport, but politicians still talk about sending people like him back the moment Assad falls. In his words, “Berlin has become my second home, I will definitely stay here.” Just like Nadia, he wants stability, not the constant threat that safety can be taken away. Even those who have “made it” still live with the possibility that the ground will shift beneath them.

The New Yorker piece on Khaled al-Halabi was also interesting in relation to this. His story is messy: a Syrian intelligence officer who both carried out regime orders and sometimes tried to soften them. He survived by maneuvering between sides, and his escape was brokered through back channels and political deals. Reading about him alongside Nadia and Modamani complicates the picture: it’s not just victims and villains. War creates these murky spaces where survival means compromise, and no one comes out clean.

Together, these readings made me think about exile less as a fixed condition and more as something unstable and shifting. For Nadia, it meant an unlocked door that could either imprison or free her. For Modamani, it’s a passport that doesn’t fully guarantee belonging. For Halabi, it was a uniform that first made him powerful and later made him hunted. What ties them all is that survival doesn’t end with escape, but evolves into a lifelong negotiation with memory, fear, and the constant question of where one truly belongs.

I was intrigued by the format of The Beekeeper of Sinjar, by Dunya Mikhail, which almost reads like an oral history. The book is comprised of Mikhail’s interviews with Abdullah, who rescues Yazidi women who are sold as slaves to Daesh officers. Mikhail gives minimal context. She doesn’t tell us what Daesh is or anything about its history. She also gives scant context about the Yazidis and the vulnerabilities they face as a persecuted group. Instead, the context emerges naturally. Mikhail assumes a certain amount of prior knowledge and lets Abdullah fill in the rest. Through the stories he tells, we learn more about the crimes Daesh commits and the experiences of those held captive. 

On the one hand, this format allows the reader to learn through immersion. Abdullah rarely mentions numbers or dives into history, instead focusing on stories of particular women. Through giving voice to these stories, we feel closer to the subjects. Context sections never pull us out of the narrative at hand. Readers are also invited into an intimate reporting process. We bear witness to one-one-one phone calls between Abdullah and Mikhail, learning details about Mikhail along the way. 

At some moments, I found myself craving context. The risk of telling many narratives in sequence is that they blend together and lose their weight. Over time, the reader can become desensitized to the acts of extreme violence described. Kingsley takes the opposite approach, weaving context throughout human stories. He even alternates between one man’s story and those of other immigrants. A combination of narrative and background create a comprehensive (though never complete) picture of Europe’s migration crisis. 

Kingsley also incorporates his own takes, at times. I appreciated this. He clarifies a key tension: as migration swells, Europe tightens border controls. The continent’s response to scores of migrants has not just been inadequate, but also, negligent. 

Today, Europe’s response is becoming more extreme, and sometimes, explicitly xenophobic. Germany started issuing payments for Syrians to return home after Assad’s regime fell. Meanwhile, the AfD gains ground around the country, helping to entrench anti-immigrant sentiment. 

Ben Taub’s reporting gives us a glimpse into migration of another kind. Taub follows the story of Khaled al-Halabi, who was initially not persecuted by Assad’s regime, but part of it. Taub never spoke with Halabi but managed to reconstruct his story, relying on other sources and his French asylum interview. Halabi went from spy to refugee when conspiracies swarmed of his failure to defend Raqqa, where he was stationed, from rebels. He crosses the border with Turkey and flees to France. Soon, scores of Syrians escaping war are also abroad. Meanwhile, the international community failed to persecute a regime whose violence was obvious and widely condemned. 

To emphasize this failure, Taub draws parallels between the world’s negligence of Jews during the Holocaust and its ambivalence toward Assad’s regime. Taub makes this connection for reasons more historical than symbolic: Nazis helped form Syria’s intelligence services. The structure that propped up Assad had structural origins in another regime that has been universally condemned. Taub’s story, in this respect, calls attention to the need for international law to protect countries from systems of persecution.

Volunteer interpreter Bruno Verduzco listened as the young mother on the phone told how the FARC beat, raped, kidnapped, and threatened her. As she spoke, Verduzco, a Mexico City native, Googled terms he missed. Colombia has its own words for the FARC and the guerilla group’s crimes, and if Verduzco got any of them wrong, the woman’s case for asylum could be rejected.

In many contexts, human interpretation is a profession of the past. In an ad for Apple’s new Airpods Pro 3, which came to stores on Friday, the technology helps a woman buy carnations from a Spanish-speaking vendor. A Portuguese-speaker and an English-speaker, both donning a fresh pair, talk business over a meal. At $250 apiece, AirPods Pro 3 uses Apple Intelligence to translate a foreign language live, in a human-like tone, into the wearer’s ear, toning down the speaker’s voice at the same time.

The possibilities to navigate foreign countries, conduct business, and communicate with loved ones are vaster than ever. But some fear Apple’s new savvy machine will become a cheap replacement for something only humans can do.

“The news about Apple’s new headphones has us a bit worried,” said Maria Juega, a legal interpreter.

Juega’s fears are warranted. In recent years, the U.S. government has started using AI-powered translation to communicate with immigrants. In 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol created an app to help officers communicate with non-English speakers entering the U.S. In 2019, ProPublica published an internal manual from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that tells officers how to decipher the social media posts of non-English speakers. “Go to translate.google.com,” it reads. “Paste the text that needs to be translated to English.” “Click on the blue ‘Translate’ command button.” “Review results.”

AI-powered translation can move a backlog of immigration cases forward. In the U.S., the demand for interpreters is constant, fluctuating based on circumstances abroad. When the Taliban took over their country in 2021, many Afghans sought asylum in the U.S. A shortage of Dari- and Pashtun-speaking interpreters slowed their cases.

Though the new AirPods are only fluent in English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and French, the technology signals hope for immigrants who speak lesser-known languages. “It’s difficult to find somebody that can interpret from Wolof to English,” said Mary F. Chicorelli, founder of Equal Access Legal Services, a Philadelphia non-profit that represents immigrants. “Or something called Soninke,” she said, referring to a West African language with no written form of its own.

Chicorelli has long relied on Google Translate for basic communication. The technology allows her to write to clients in their native languages to confirm consultations or notify them of a green card approval. But she is skeptical of AI’s ability to handle more important tasks, like preparing for asylum interviews or verifying key facts.

If an interpreter mistranslates an immigrant’s story, “their entire case could be blown,” she said. The stakes are especially high for asylum seekers, who rarely know English and are often fleeing dangerous circumstances. In their hearings, they rely on interpreters to get their stories right.

To request asylum, each applicant needs to prepare a document explaining her reasons for seeking refuge. For a case to make it to court, this document must be written in clear, well-formatted English. Asylum seekers depend on interpreters long before they make it to court.

“The nuances of interpretation are extremely important for translating how a person’s experience fits into—or doesn’t—the very specific statutes that govern asylum,” said Amelia Frank-Vitale, an anthropologist and immigration scholar. For someone to qualify for asylum, they must fit into a persecuted group. “It isn’t enough to rise to the level of asylum under US and international law that people want to kill you,” Dr. Frank-Vitale said.

In this context, details matter.

An example: In Spanish, jefe means boss. In Mexico, it sometimes means “father.” In an asylum case, a mistranslation of jefe could nullify a plea for asylum due to familial or gender-based persecution.

“The translation aspect of it, in my opinion, is the easiest part,” Verduzco said, reflecting on his work for Solidaridad Central Jersey, a Pro-Se clinic for asylum seekers. “I do fear that not a lot of people can interpret, and even less can interpret in a cultural sense.”

Live translation technology is not novel. But with Apple’s new product, it is easier to use than ever. The wearer simply taps a button or says “Siri, start Live Translation” to activate the setting. Human interpreters are wary of the risks that come with machine replacements. “We think that in the legal context, our jobs will keep being necessary,” said Juega, a court interpreter. “Even if certain aspects will be made easier by the new technology.”

Russia’s network of forcible re-education and militarization sites for Ukrainian children from occupied territory is far more extensive than previously known, Yale University researchers said in a report released last week.

War crimes investigators with the university’s Humanitarian Research Lab have identified 210 sites in Russia and occupied Ukraine that they say have housed Ukrainian children for military training, pro-Kremlin education, and other efforts aimed at assimilating them into Russian culture.

Since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022, the Ukrainian government has identified at least 20,000 children from occupied territories that have been forcibly taken to Russia, some of them eventually placed with Russian families and given Russian citizenship. Some aid groups estimate that the actual number is far higher. 

The network of facilities, the Yale researchers said, spans summer camps, orphanages, universities, military schools, and at least one religious site. In addition to finding nearly double the number of locations they expected, said the lab’s director, Nathaniel Raymond, they were also surprised by the scope of militarization activities.

“To be able to visually see from 450 miles above the Earth’s surface that they are training kids at gun ranges and in trench fortifications that directly resemble the front-line fortifications we see at this stage in the Ukraine war was truly chilling,” Raymond said.

Maria Zakharova, a Russian government spokesperson, denied the Yale report as “fake fabrications” on Thursday.

“No one bothers to provide any facts and no one bears any responsibility,” she said at a press conference.

The investigators from the Humanitarian Research Lab relied on satellite imagery, Russian social media posts, government announcements, and other publicly available, open-source information to identify re-education facilities — including Russian government property data that showed it owned about half of the sites in question. Around one-quarter of the 210 sites had been identified in previous investigations.

Around 62 percent of locations hosted re-education activity for Ukrainian children, including history lectures, museum visits, and programming focused on Russian patriotic themes. Additionally, children underwent some form of military training or militarization at nearly 40 facilities; in one case, children at a site run by Russia’s Ministry of Education assembled drones, mine detectors, robots, and other military equipment.

The findings have some limitations. The Yale researchers could not determine the number of Ukrainian children located at the facilities, nor whether they were still being held. They also cautioned that the actual number of sites could be much higher.

Still, the report is significant for identifying the locations of so many re-education centers and tying them directly to the Russian government, said Vladyslav Havrylov, a Ukrainian historian and a fellow with the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues at Georgetown University.

“It’s once more strong evidence that in high level of Russian governors, they know about forcible deportation from occupied territories, they support this policy, they want to re-education and militarize the children,” he said. “It’s a planned policy from [the] Russian Federation.”

“We try to force force them to live with the reality that now the majority of the camps locations are known,” Raymond said. “That’s because they’re trying to muddle the numbers as part of the negotiations, to make it harder for the Ukrainians to specifically hold them to definite individuals, definite overall cohort numbers, and access requests to specific locations.”

However, the Humanitarian Research Lab’s future is uncertain after it lost its federal funding due to Trump administration cuts in March. The lab has since kept running on private donations, Raymond said.

The issue of Ukrainian children has generated international outrage and is one of few aspects of the war with bipartisan agreement in Congress. In the days after the Yale lab’s new report, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Amy Klobuchar, a Republican and a Democrat, took to Fox News to re-up calls for unconditionally returning Ukrainian children before any peace agreement with Russia is finalized.