"The Deportation of Dissent"

An excellent April 14 article by Jacob Mchangama and Hirad Marami (The Bedrock Principle); here’s an excerpt:

The Department of Homeland Security recently announced that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would begin screening the social media posts of “aliens applying for lawful permanent resident status,” as well as foreign students and others affiliated with educational institutions deemed linked to antisemitic activity. In particular, USCIS will deny benefits to applicants whose posts indicate support for “antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity.”

This move follows several high-profile cases where foreign students — including visa and Green Card holders — were detained, seemingly for their speech or beliefs. This includes a Turkish student at Tufts University, who was seemingly targeted for co-authoring a student newspaper op-ed calling for a boycott of Israel, despite no evidence that she supported terrorism or expressed antisemitism.

The Trump administration is invoking a clause of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that allows the Secretary of State broad discretion to deport anyone he believes “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” As such, a recently released memo detailing the government’s case against the most prominent of the activists, Mahmoud Khalil, refrains from charging him with any crime. On Friday [April 11], a Louisiana immigration judge upheld the Government’s decision to deport Khalil. Constitutional scholars debate whether and to what extent the First Amendment protects noncitizens in such cases, and the Supreme Court may eventually weigh in.

But the question is not only constitutional — it is foundational. Is deporting foreigners for expressing disfavored views compatible with a robust commitment to a culture of free speech?

As it turns out, history has a lot to tell us about states that exclude foreigners with controversial opinions and those that welcome non-native dissenters….

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