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.
Challenging authority is a requirement of progress - if you can't criticize the system how can you dream of improving it?
here's the article: https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj.
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.
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.
"To apply for a visa, applicants need to give us (and the rest of the world) access to all email correspondence."
No one is complaining about screening for threats. It's how that's a problem.
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.
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."
It's hard to argue that political speech has been a success in China, and we're going to end up a lot like China if we don't fight this with everything we have.
If a government with nearly no backstops against public message-shaping has as much trouble as China does keeping criticism out, imagine the trouble one where many pieces of the system, structural and individual, will actively oppose erosion of the First Amendment (the real "criticism of the government" kind, not the hand-wavey "It should be a crime to ban me from Facebook" kind) will experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23X14HS4gLk
One must sympathize with the good folks at AMCHAM that will have to clean up the mess.
Have a wonderful day =)
There's a metro station in Bucharest, Romania that's noticeably smaller than the rest. It was built in secret by the workers. The administration didn't want it built at all - it was by the University, and they believed students should be forced to walk, lest they become lazy. Luckily, the workers had the foresight to build the station in secret for some unknown future date. Now, it's one of the most used stations in the Capital.
It's mostly about creating a climate of fear. This administration wants people who are vulnerable to shut up so they don't have to work so hard to shut people up. I don't doubt that they will move on to testing the waters on how to shut up citizens too; the paths for non-citizens are just more obvious (since the US government carved out clear delineations that indicate non-citizens don't enjoy Constitutional protections to allow them to be tortured after September 11).
Of course, the US wanted them out for other reasons, but this is the simplest charge to bring against them.
Heard of software?
It’s hard not to see this as another “freedom of speech (but only for the kind of speech we like)” situation.
Many of the rights US residents have don't apply to visa applicants.
In any case, there are plenty of examples in the past where the US denied people entry based on stuff they've publicly said/written. What's different here is requiring you to disclose all your handles and make them public.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "
Note the wording. It's not in the business of granting rights (those are natural and inalienable). It restricts Congress's ability to pass any law that infringes upon those rights.
And DOGE will have access to the client list so they can share it with ICE.
If you drove a car drunk and it turned into a police chase, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?
If you snuck across the Japanese border with intention to live there undocumented, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?
If you posted social media saying you wanted to overthrow the Japanese government, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?
Literally anything involving a gun and a crime, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?
If the answer is "no", you're probably feeding too heavily from ideology. The reality is that most countries, including far more stable and peaceful countries than the US will ever be, are far less tolerant of crossing borders illegally, drunk driving, gun offenses, etc. With their own citizens, to say nothing of foreigners on visas.
When the United States was founded, the average nation was some flavor of monarchy.
And unlike in the US they actually do enforce the laws there.
Isn't Japan famously safe and clean?
Man, Japan is really missing out here. They should listen to the wealthy western champagne liberals on HN who are outspokenly pro mass migration and yet spend most of their income to live in homes as far as possible from cities impacted by mass immigration, usually in majority-white suburbs with good safe schools and manicured lawns.
Edit: answering here to your comment below. Which statistics are you referring to? And why is resorting to the Hitler card on people who disagree with you your only argument? Let's address your vile accusations with facts from experts:
"Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings."[1]
It's certainly a purely theoretical fate. I have zero reason to believe undocumented people are more dangerous than citizens. I mean, intuitively, they risk so much more - namely deportation and torture. If I followed a Republican philosophy of tough on crime, I would then say they must be committing less crime.
Do we have any reason to believe they're more dangerous? And I mean real reasons, like statistics. No Patrick, "they're vaguely brown" is not a real reason. No Patrick, "homogeneous population" isn't a real reason either.
You're cherry picking and assuming they only look for obvious criminal offences like "government overthrow" and not dissenting views, criticism of the people in power, views against the economic order, etc. For some of those I can imagine the answer being "no" in Japan and "Yes" in the US.
This administration already considers protesting genocide a “threat to national security”. It has a well documented history of retaliating against protected speech. This latest policy is authoritarian retaliation against of free speech, plain and simple. Comparing the policy of a liberal democracy like Japan to contemporary US authoritarianism is truly disingenuous.
You fail to address, though, that 1- the US is requiring social media accounts to be set to public, forcing people's hand into being labled as aggitators. 2- stuff that might be of academic interest is notoriously targeted by this admin, like any research being done on Israel/Palestine, any research being done on ESG, not to mention the more overt leftist themes (pro-LGBT, abortion, etc academics). This change is an easy way for the admin to target this type of research
The US was built on immigration; Japan never was -- it has always been anti-immigration. There's no Statue of Liberty with "give me your huddled masses" inscription.
These harsh actions go against the principles on which the US was founded and built. Similar actions in Japan do not go against the principles on which Japan was founded.
A separate conversation, but immigration -- legal or illegal -- greatly benefits the US economically. While conversely, Japan's immigration policies are greatly hurting its economy as its population declines.
I'm not pro- illegal immigration. I'm for making legal immigration much more accessible so that you don't end up with millions of illegal immigrants.
Edit: I know. It's just a convenient foil!
He's a liar, but he's our liar. We're hoping most of the shit he talks about never passes into law, but those are our laws. Wait, what are we voting for again? Why are we even voting for this dumb-ass is we don't like his policies and don't want them to pass?
When Trump coin was released, my Mom had a talk with me. She said "I just don't get it. He's already rich, why would he need to run a scam on American people? This makes no sense. Why would he stoop to that level?" I didn't have the heart to tell her he didn't stoop anywhere, that's just the level he's at.
Saying you don’t like the President should not deny you entry to the United States. This is, straight up, horse shit and I do not approve of it nor do I believe it should be permitted by the executive.
Most of whom are Chinese.[1] Somehow I don't think they plan to go after them.
[1] Very obvious during the Hong Kong protests.
Seems like instead of making it easier for smart and talented people to come to US, we are making it harder... cause terrorism?
Lots of discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44314054
rcbdev•5h ago
We both agree that we would have not chosen to visit under the current visa regime, and I assume many others agree with our sentiment.
MinimalAction•5h ago
duxup•4h ago
It's not just international students either, in their demand to Harvard the Trump administration demanded Harvard hire an outside group to survey Harvard staff and STUDENTS for "viewpoint diversity" and if they felt the diversity wasn't what the administration wanted, adjust staff and students to fit their view.
consumer451•15m ago