I don't think the concern is "Could this plausibly be defended in a court of law?". The concern is "Is it healthy for society for the government to be deporting people based on political beliefs?".
Yes, absolutely I want our government deporting people _at points of border entry_ based on their political beliefs. That shouldn't even be controversial.
If you're into North Korean or Iranian hardliner "Death To America" politics, I sincerely hope that CBP calmly and politely has you gtfo at point of entry and hopefully no later.
Granted, I wouldn't want it to be _these_ political beliefs, but if you're a journalist publicly flying afoul of the political administration of the country you're traveling to, being denied entry is pretty much status quo around the world. It shouldn't be a shock to anyone.
> Yes, absolutely I want our government deporting people _at points of border entry_ based on their political beliefs.
Whoa. I think your views are indicative of where this is all heading.
> you're a journalist publicly flying afoul of the political administration of the country you're traveling to, being denied entry is pretty much status quo around the world. It shouldn't be a shock to anyone.
Not in most "Western" nations until just recently. The main exceptions were if you are calling for violence. But I think that the values we previously associated with "Western" nations is not as applicable to the US as evidenced by what is happening. Some political non-violent, non-racist views, are being banned and punished.
We have a very long history of denying media at the border. Especially when they try to travel without an I-visa (not saying this blogger would be considered a legitimate journalist or be required to have one).
We also have a long history of having our spies pose as media and get denied entry to other countries for it. If it's a tactic we use, we would expect the same in kind.
This is closer to "refusing entry" than to deporting.
Also the answer is yes. All European countries do various forms of refusing entry due to political beliefs for example. I can't really imagine it's different anywhere else on the planet.
The Netherlands has watchlists of people. Mostly extreme-right and pro-terror names are on that list. In the legislation this is called the "hate preacher" list, and one example of a person on that list is Mohamed Khatib. Another name would be David Icke. Don't look these people up, they are both hateful assholes that, frankly, deserve to be on that list for their political opinion (essentially they preach mass random killings to "help" their respective ideologies). BUT it's not known whose names are on the list, just that there's "hundreds" on there now. Also: now the Netherlands has breached EU legislation (free movement of people in the EU? Not if you're on this list ...)
(Perhaps it's relevant to say that in the Netherlands 1 politician in office has been executed, on the street, about a dozen have been attacked with everything you can think of: machetes, one with a tractor, cars, and one got hit in the face with a fist. Half the parliament complains about weekly death threats. Oh and the current leader of the far-right PVV, effectively the current leader of the government, complains he hasn't had a day with less than 10 death threats in months. He was physically attacked several times since in office)
But go around the earth and it rapidly gets much, much worse:
For example, when Tunisia got caught executing refugees by driving them into the desert and leaving them behind, without water, violating the agreement they signed with the EU ... suddenly they started systematically refusing entry to anyone who might be checking up on this. They refused entry to journalists, EU parliament members, doctors, ... And they got their way: it disappeared from the news.
The same has happened in Turkey, but Turkey has since removed journalists for 100 different reasons since the staged "coup" against Erdogan.
This political suppression is common, for a current example, both Palestine (both the PA and Hamas) refuse entry to most journalists. Hamas was flexible until [1], PA was never flexible. Not sure if it's related, but a Hamas rocket barrage hit the hotel that journalist team was staying AFTER they left Gaza. Iran kicked all journalists out about 4 months after the Iranian revolution and has since imprisoned over 1000 journalists and executed at least 30 of those.
It's becoming more common. Now in the last year Israel has also started refusing entry to (some) journalists (only Al Jazeera actually, and they still have journalists in Israel, but yes some of their employees were refused entry). India has also removed journalists, not from India but from conflict zones.
In the last few days Egypt deported (and arrested) groups of people to prevent a demonstration.
> Mostly extreme-right and pro-terror names are on that list.
A terrorist is a that's a far, far cry from a _journalist_ covering an _event_ at a university. I don't think anyone is against protecting their borders from _actual terrorists_.
It's hilarious that the other examples are essentially military dictatorships. And it's now totally fine to have the US in that list...
These are not actual terrorists. They would never be so dumb as to implement "their" ideology themselves. They only preach it in hopes others will kill for them. In other words: they're politicians, in a very extreme way.
