Ahlam Chemlali

Leave If You Can by Amelia Frank-Vitale - Paper Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

My first book - on Honduras, migration, and the extended violence of borders - is coming out in March. Preorders are available now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org or directly through @ucpress.bsky.social — with a 30% off discount code "UCPSAVE30."

www.ucpress.edu/books/leave-...

Tracking Every US Strike on Boats in the Caribbean and Pacific The Trump administration is committing illegal strike after illegal strike. Don’t look away, and don’t lose track.

Tracking Every US Strike on Boats in the Caribbean and Pacific

The Trump administration is committing illegal strike after illegal strike. Don’t look away, and don’t lose track, writes @premthakker.bsky.social.

Read now: zeteo.com/p/trump-us-b...

Thank you very much for taking the time to attend and for your kind and generous words. I truly appreciate it, especially coming from you 🙏🏽

Finally had the chance to hear @ahlamchemlali.bsky.social present the findings from her PhD on the everyday experiences of violence and discrimination of women migrants in Tunesia @diis.dk @aau.dk

vbn.aau.dk/da/publicati...

Thank you so much, Mikkel!

A person presenting in front of a powerpoint slide with multiple onlookers seated in front

Brilliant public presentation by @ahlamchemlali.bsky.social of her PhD “Living and Dying in Transit: Violence, bodies and survival in the Tunisian borderlands” @diis.dk

Last week, I defended my PhD!! 💃🏽🎓🥳

A day I’ll always remember. Thank you to everyone who’s supported me, shown up, cheered me on, and opened doors over the years, deeply grateful

Folding into the everyday ❤️❤️❤️ thank you!!

Thank you so much, Sara – I’m truly honored by your generous words! It means a great deal coming from you. I’m incredibly grateful for your presence and support during this special moment 🙏✨

An absolute tour de force introduction to her PHD defense by @ahlamchemlali.bsky.social - eye opening, captivating - more magisterial than doctoral! . Replete with thick and fine tuned ethnography and new conceptual constructs. Deserved standing ovation at the end. @diis.dk @aau.dk

Externalising asylum is the hottest trend in EU migration policy; but just 10 years ago the European Commission opposed it on humanitarian and legal grounds.

Here's what you need to know.

euobserver.com/migration/ar...

Jérôme Tubiana · Diary: Safe and Unsafe Ports In 2019, I made several visits to Dhar al-Jebel, a Libyan detention centre better known as Zintan, after the nearest...

‘Since Libya is not safe, survivors should be taken to Italy or Malta. Yet Italian authorities had started to delay designating a port to both NGO and commercial vessels carrying rescued migrants.’

Jérôme Tubiana on Europe’s complicity in Libyan treatment of migrants:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

What happened in Libya this week wasnt a spat between militias that got out of hand, these are just expressions of a broader power struggle

Bottom line- Dbeiba did what he did to protect his position & protests are being exploited how they are by those who covet it

The Immigration Pendulum Is Swinging Once Again Trump was elected, in part, on a pledge to crack down on immigration. But he may be overinterpreting his mandate.

NEW -- Trump's eroding immigration approval rating follows an iron law of ICE enforcement: the more Americans see what it looks like, the less they tend to support mass deportation www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Opinion: How the U.S. is repeating Europe's failed migration policies The U.S. is moving asylum operations to Latin America. This follows Europe's decades-old policy of 'externalizing' the crackdown on migrants.

Trump admin planning to deport migrants to Libya and Rwanda is straight out of the EU’s externalization playbook. This is exactly what I’ve warned about: offshoring asylum, ignoring rights, and copying Europe’s failed deterrence model 1:1.

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Guantánamo Migrant Operation Has Held Fewer Than 500 Detainees, and None in Tents

In case you missed: This week's front-page story from Guantanamo Bay explains that those tents Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem inspected have never been used. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/u...

Trump administration weighs sending migrants to Libya and Rwanda, sources say | CNN Politics The Trump administration has discussed with Libya and Rwanda the possibility of sending migrants who have criminal records and are in the United States to the two countries, according to multiple sour...

Trump admin planning to deport migrants to Libya and Rwanda is straight out of the EU’s externalization playbook. This is exactly what I’ve warned about: offshoring asylum, ignoring rights, and copying Europe’s failed deterrence model 1:1 edition.cnn.com/2025/04/30/p...

U.S. Companies Honed Their Surveillance Tech in Israel. Now It’s Coming Home. After deploying AI tools in Israel and on the U.S. border, American tech companies are now powering domestic repression.

After deploying AI tools in Israel and on the U.S. border, American tech companies are now powering domestic repression.

Opinion: How the U.S. is repeating Europe's failed migration policies The U.S. is moving asylum operations to Latin America. This follows Europe's decades-old policy of 'externalizing' the crackdown on migrants.

Trump admin planning to deport migrants to Libya and Rwanda is straight out of the EU’s externalization playbook. This is exactly what I’ve warned about: offshoring asylum, ignoring rights, and copying Europe’s failed deterrence model 1:1.

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Opinion: How the U.S. is repeating Europe's failed migration policies The U.S. is moving asylum operations to Latin America. This follows Europe's decades-old policy of 'externalizing' the crackdown on migrants.

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Trump administration weighs sending migrants to Libya and Rwanda, sources say | CNN Politics The Trump administration has discussed with Libya and Rwanda the possibility of sending migrants who have criminal records and are in the United States to the two countries, according to multiple sour...

Trump admin planning to deport migrants to Libya and Rwanda is straight out of the EU’s externalization playbook. This is exactly what I’ve warned about: offshoring asylum, ignoring rights, and copying Europe’s failed deterrence model 1:1 edition.cnn.com/2025/04/30/p...

Non-Refoulement Obligations and the Alien Enemies Act Removals Non-refoulement prohibits states from removing from their jurisdiction any person who could be at risk of human rights violations.

With reports of Trump admin. plan to send migrants to Libya

This analysis by @becingber.bsky.social @scott-roehm.bsky.social is relevant

"Non-refoulement is ... codified in US statutes. It prohibits States from transferring...person would be at risk of certain serious human rights violations."

Trump Administration Plans to Send Migrants to Libya on a Military Flight

Breaking News: The Trump administration is planning to send a group of migrants to Libya, in a sharp escalation of its deportation program.

Introducing 'Felt Externalisation': Exploring the Human and Environmental Impacts of EU Borders

"‘Felt externalisation’ is a way to go beyond the policies, the visible, and spectacular and instead capture the everyday, the slow, granular, and felt experience of border externalisation, be it fear, collective trauma, environmental degradation, or the smell of death."

Read Ahlam Chemlali's post:

In Sonora, Mexico for the ‘Sonora-Sahara’ colloquium, grateful to join brilliant minds exploring arid borders, mobility, smuggling & violence from North Africa to the US-Mexico border.

Thank you so much, Sara!

The day has come - I’ve officially submitted my PhD!!

The dissertation will be publicly available once the defence is announced - stay tuned for the date!

Open-source researchers: whether you’re actively searching for evidence re: conflict-related sexual violence or not, you may find it. We've just launched the pilot Open-Source Practitioner’s Guide to the Murad Code w/ IICI to help www.muradcode.com/open-source-... @berkeleylaw.bsky.social

Conflicting realities: mapping discrepancies in migrant deaths data on the Atlantic route

Maybe you've seen the truly shocking figures for migrant deaths in the Atlantic Ocean, reaching nearly 10,000 for 2024. How should we deal with such numbers, not least when they differ radically to other ac/counts? With Marta Sanchez Dionis in Border Criminologies.
blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...

Grateful my UCLA and Yale research stays were pre-Trump. Pretty sure I wouldn’t get in today. Maddening especially since international students pay full tuition, helping fund scholarships for local students. Everyone loses.