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Toronto, July 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In a climate where walls and detention centres are built, border enforcement agencies expanded and new border control technologies adopted, there is a risk of global displacement, already at a historic high, skyrocketing. Associate Professor Sean Rehaag of Osgoode Hall Law School, along with an international collaboration, will work to understand, mitigate and respond to a burgeoning refugee crisis through a $2.5 million Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant announced today.
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The project, Algorithmic Justice for Refugees Research Network (AJRRN), will investigate the inequitable and rights-violating impact of artificial intelligence and new digital technologies increasingly used in border control on refugees, and others on the move, and develop innovative, rights-enhancing and transparent alternatives.
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SSHRC Partnership Grants provide support for multi-year partnerships to advance research, research training and/or knowledge mobilization in the social sciences and humanities.
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“Professor Rehaag and his international partners are confronting one of the defining social justice issues of our time, and York is proud to stand behind them. A project of this scale grows out of sustained investment in interdisciplinary research, and the Centre for Refugee Studies, one of York’s Organized Research Units, provided the foundation of expertise and support that made it possible,” says York Interim President and Vice-Chancellor Lisa Philipps.
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New border control technologies, including biometric systems, automated decision-making tools, lie-detection technologies and drones, often come with limited oversight and an exacerbation of longstanding refugee and immigration decision-making inequalities, while private sector interests and investments drive further border security developments.
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The project is a global, interdisciplinary effort, a response to the rise of these technologies that could increase human rights violations and create a refugee crisis. In 2024, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 120 million people were forced to move due to conflict, human rights violations and other disruptions, and that number is expected to rise.
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“We are at a crucial juncture when it comes to border control and technology. There is a risk of further inequalities in the way refugee and immigration claims are handled at a time when there are more refugees around the world today than at any point since World War II,” says Rehaag, director of the Refugee Law Laboratory (RLL), which will host the seven-year AJRRN project. The RLL operates within Osgoode and the Centre of Refugee Studies at York University.
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The range of technological experiments happening globally directly impact refugees and the movement of displaced people. They include big data predictions about population movements in the Mediterranean, automated decision-making for United Kingdom immigration applications, photo matching technologies to detect program integrity concerns in Canada’s refugee system, AI lie-detectors at European airports, and drones and other automated surveillance devices deployed at the Mexico-US Border.
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