This isn't about national security threats. It's about any excuse for racism and xenophobia.
Posting social media comments protesting the actions of Israel is not a national security threat but is something we've seen this administration invoke penalties for.
The hatred, bigotry, and raw short sightedness are horrifying. To the degree that America is "great" it is great because it was a place where great people from around the world wanted to come to and wanted to live in. Turning away students - the most likely source of new scientific and artistic greatness in the future - is throwing away any leadership we had and actively harming the country.
It is in fact harming national security if these brilliant minds study, live, and work in other countries.
Turning away troublemakers is a smart thing to do. There are more than enough talented people waiting in line. People who will not shout down professors, occupy university buildings and protest against the government of the country that received them as guests.
Yes, being anti-protest... surely this will go over well to a largely American audience on an American website. Surely this doesn't go against the core and fundamental beliefs that founded our country.
You'll find there's a high correlation between intelligence and being regarded as a troublemaker. Also a correlation with strongly held beliefs of many types, including moral beliefs.
Challenging authority is a requirement of progress - if you can't criticize the system how can you dream of improving it?
Yeah, we should never host foreigners who protest what they view as fascism, such people aren't worth having. Remember the dumb Albert Einstein! What horrible political views he had.
“(…) officers have been instructed to look for any indication of 'hostility' toward the U.S. or its people, although it did not provide further details of what exactly that could mean.”
When the search is open-ended and under the officer's criteria, anything can be an excuse to revoke a visa. Recently, there was news about a visitor rejected because of a JD Vance meme, so this is not hypothetical. It is also the perfect excuse for racism: If I don’t like your face, then let me do a deep search of any comment or meme that you liked in your social media history.
For example, this comment in a public thread can be read as “hostile,” as I’m implying a critique of the current government. Even if that happens in exceptional cases when the officer has a bad day, it has a chilling effect because you’ll be extremely careful of what you say on Internet forums if your goal is to apply for a visa.
A tourist got his entry denied after a search on his phone.
According to the tourist, it was because of that meme. According to the CBP, it was because of his past drug use, and a photo related to that was on his phone. Which one is right? I don’t know. The situation wasn’t clear, so it made the news. Those phone searches are the perfect excuse to deny your entry. The reason for the denial wasn’t apparent, which is why it got to the news (by the way, I read the news a week ago, before the CBP response, which I read while finding you the link to the news).
As a foreigner who travels to the US from time to time, that makes me uneasy. It only takes a friend to send a photo or meme through WhatsApp to get you in trouble.
> It only takes a friend to send a photo or meme through WhatsApp to get you in trouble.
Does it? The particular meme which was claimed to be the issue is something the administration and people on the right enjoy. I can't see anyone on the side of the administration being vindictive for having that meme.
None of that is unique to the present adminstration (not that you said it was), it's been that way at the border for a long time and people have brought up your - valid - concerns before. That said is there any direct evidence of racism in this latest news cycle?
Interesting, thanks for that. After reading a bit more, it seems, rather than "threat to national security" as claimed by NPR, Trump is more likely using "threat to U.S. foreign policy interests" as defined in Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which became law as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) signed by Bill Clinton. Perhaps that law needs to go.
>Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)
>An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.[0]
What one deems reasonable ground can speak very clearly about their intended application of that law.
My understanding from my law training is that, perhaps surprisingly, "reasonable" is an objective, not subjective standard. The "reasonable" standard asks whether a hypothetical, ordinary and rational person, acting reasonably, would reach the same conclusion based on the same information. And this can be decided by a judge or jury if/when necessary.
> The "reasonable" standard asks whether a hypothetical, ordinary and rational person, acting reasonably, would reach the same conclusion based on the same information. And this can be decided by a judge or jury if/when necessary.
It's subjective in other words. A jury would be unnecessary otherwise.
"To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas will be instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to “public.”"
It leaves me with a lot of questions.
What even constitutes a social media profile? For how long do you have to mark it public? What if marking all your social media profiles public exposes you to harm? Is it acceptable to delete all your posts (that were previously _private_) before making a profile public, or to delete whole profiles, or would that desire for privacy be seen as concealing some threat? How is it known if there are non-public profiles? Would govt believe somebody who has no social media presence at all?
"screening visa applicants for threats" is a very simplistic summary of the situation. I think visa applicants are just gonna go eleswhere.
This is not a hypothetical. Folks have already been deported just for having contrarian views to the administration that are well within bounds of a polite bar argument about politics.
Could you say what that case was? I'm curious what the article actually said. Simply "critical of Israel" is surely not accurate because even Trump himself has recently been critical of Israel. It's completely normal to criticize countries.
The famously dangerous threats that are thoroughly documented college level students. Americans have commited the majority of terrorist attacks in their own country, especially if you count school shootings
Not sure how we pivoted to "terror" from "national security," which is much broader, but since we are here:
School shootings are not typically classified as "terrorism" unless they are explicitly motivated by political, ideological or religious agendas.
Foreign-sponsored terrorist attacks, such as 9/11, San Bernardino shooting, Pulse nightclub shooting, etc result in significantly higher casualties, widespread fear and greater economic impact (in the $trillions). Foreign actors are typically more sophisticated, thus calling for enhanced screening. And their actions have further-reaching consequences such as the cost of wars and homeland security measures.
School shootings are not typically classified as "terrorism" because they're overwhelmingly done by white males. The same reason the current administration refuses to react to white nationalist terrorism.
This already exists...border agents can require you to unlock your phone and other electronic devices, without a warrant or probable cause. Refusing means facing denial of entry
I know that - it's not the same. Border agents will not say "Hey, we think you have 2 phones, and you brought only one. We'll deny entry and next time bring both."
They also don't say "Hey, this phone you gave me doesn't have any photos. You must have backed them up elsewhere and are hiding them from me. I'm denying entry."
In other words, they don't say "Hey, bring all the photos you ever took."
Yes, and that's bad. "This isn't a problem because it's always been a problem" isn't a defense.
And, we must acknowledge the obvious: such authoritarian rules and requirements rely on benevolence. Meaning, if your leader and border agents are good people, then this isn't a problem.
Well... are they? I say no, so now this is a problem that didn't exist previously.
This is not about national security. We were already scanning social media profiles for that kind of stuff when folks applied for visas. This is arbitrary.
Would only international students pose the risk to national security? Do you then agree that government should keep every profile under surveillance so no private profile exists for anybody? Also, who posts threats on social media?
Welcome to America, where having a thought police is absolutely not against freedom of speech, while having the right to attend a literal Nazi march is a beautiful expression of Freedom of speech.
