Ugh. Yesterday, President Trump posthumously awarded Charlie Kirk the Medal of Freedom. That was an appropriate way to express admiration and appreciation for the martyred conservative activist. (MSNBC, alone among the networks, didn’t feel the ceremony was newsworthy. Now, a newsworthy ceremony for the network was President Biden giving the Presidential Citizen’s Medal to Liz Cheney for running a Star Chamber against American citizens tand her own party o make sure the public understands the difference between bad rioting—the half-day Capitol embarrassment by conservative morons—and good rioting—the nation-wide, May through December 2020 Black Lives Matter “mostly peaceful protests” by Democrats—at least according to”MS.” Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias…).
An inappropriate, cheesy, grandstanding pro-Kirk gesture absurdly hostile to freedom of speech was the Trump State Department revoking the visas of six foreigners who made derisive comments about Kirk or who joked about his assassination. Oh no, not THAT! Foreigners making jokes!
The State Department said yesterday that it had determined the six unidentified foreign nationals from Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Paraguay and South Africa should lose their visas after reviewing their online social media posts and clips about Kirk. “[We]will defend our borders, our culture, and our citizens by enforcing our immigration laws,” the State Department said. “Aliens who take advantage of America’s hospitality while celebrating the assassination of our citizens will be removed.”
Celebrating.
Next up from this weirdly thin-skinned gang: prosecuting whoever celebrates LA Dodger victories in the baseball play-offs. The move hands a metaphorical spiked club to the Trump-Deranged who claim this President wants to cancel the First Amendment. Dumb. Abuse of power.
Unethical.
Morons.
Ethics Alarms 
I will remind you that the U.S. actually deported a permanent resident alien for past membership in the Communist Party. See Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580 (1952)
And they stripped Fritz Kuhn of the German-American Bund of his naturalized American citizenship and deported him back to Germany after the war was over. That doesn’t count the German residents – non-citizens, some with American-born children – who were traded toward the end of the war for Jews and VIPs because the residents were considered enemy aliens. Some of them may have sympathized with the Nazi regime; some of them may not have.
Read The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During WWII by Jan Jarboe Russell.
However, that was a wartime practice and inter arma enim silent leges. The case you cited appears to have been during the Cold War when anti-Communist sentiment ran deep and respect for individual liberties when it came to freedom of association waned during that time.
I could possibly get behind the Administration’s probable argument that permission to reside in the United States is conditional and that we certainly don’t want to allow people to take advantage of our hospitability by engaging in destructive riots or exhibiting hostility to the U.S. and its government. However, this action by the Trump State Department does violate Freedom of Speech. As long as none of the posts encouraged or attempted to incite violence, they are in poor taste but not illegal.
I suppose one could argue that the threshold of what constitutes harmful speech should be lower for non-citizen alien residents, I’m just not sure how we measure that in a way that doesn’t come back to bite the administration later. Which it most certainly will.
Why do we have visas if anyone can come here and take advantage of American culture and not be subject to some additional conditions. We have gates for a reason. What those reasons are I don’t know but I would assume they exist to limit those inclined to create disruptions in the quiet enjoyment of its citizens.
I have some difficulty with the notion that free speech advocates use to say that no government consequence can be imposed for stating ones opinions. For example, try mouthing off to a judge in a courtroom. He or she will summarily eject you from the room or will cite you with contempt. The same holds true when Congress is holding hearings. You cannot decide to hold a conversation that disrupts or yell and scream or even demand to be heard without some form of sanction. Both of these are part of government so they are restricted in limiting speech but they can, and do, when certain conditions are met.
I don’t see the administration demanding the posts be taken down so they are not specifically banning speech. My understanding is that I can post something in Mongolia on X or Bluesky or even my own website and as long as it does not inflame Xi it will show up around the world including the U.S. Nothing in this world can make me believe that the government is banning these individual’s written statements.
What seems to be the argument is that all foreign nationals are entitled to say anything they want with impunity and never be denied continued access to the use of American assets, in America.
AM Golden said ” However, this action by the Trump State Department does violate Freedom of Speech. As long as none of the posts encouraged or attempted to incite violence, they are in poor taste but not illegal. None of the six who the AP says were booted for speech infractions were identified so we have no clue what was actually said. For all we know each could be promoting more violence like Jay Jones did in his posts. Therefore, we cannot conclude that the action violated their free speech rights.
From the AP report: According to the State Department “It said it is reviewing the status of the more than 55 million current U.S. visa holders for potential violations of its standards.”
Apparently there are standards with respect to getting the privilege to visit the U.S. beyond adhering to our basic laws. Given the millions of anti-Trump statements made here and abroad by foreign nationals, and we are talking about only 6 people whose visas were revoked, this action does not make me think we are on the verge of an abridgement of the first amendment. If these foreign nationals believe they have a case let them have it tried in the court system.
The AP is not known for unbiased coverage of this administration. It did identify an expelled South African Ambassador who criticized Trump but he is not on American soil and thus enjoys immunity by his own government. We expel diplomats from time to time who act in a manner that creates friction between our government and their own. So the idea that he is entitled to our Constitutional protections is false. He cannot have his cake and eat it too. The other was the Mahmood Abbas who was instrumental in the October 7 attack on Israel and an ongoing impediment to the peace deal. He was denied a visa to speak at the UN and thus not on American soil. A denial of a visa does not constitute and abridgment of speech.
Depends on the conditions. Making jokes about a dead conservative activist is hardly sedition. No citizen could even be warned about such speech. It makes sense for the US to maintain its principles and let visitors enjoy our rights withing reason. Surely not punishing them for social media content that doesn’t foment violence or rebellion is in that category, no?
Do we know the totality of the comments made. There may be more to this than a tasteless joke.
Pritzgers statement on social media claiming ICE threw chemical weapons at Chicago Police , peaceful citizens and children when in fact ICE was under attack from a rock throwing and Chicago PD was trying to disperse the crowd is far more dangerous than what the visa holders said but AP won’t report that.
“From the AP report: According to the State Department ‘It said it is reviewing the status of the more than 55 million current U.S. visa holders for potential violations of its standards.'”
“Apparently there are standards with respect to getting the privilege to visit the U.S. beyond adhering to our basic laws.”
As there should be. The AP does not identify what those standards are. That would have been helpful.
“Given the millions of anti-Trump statements made here and abroad by foreign nationals, and we are talking about only 6 people whose visas were revoked, this action does not make me think we are on the verge of an abridgement of the first amendment.”
Since the previous paragraph indicated that the State Department was reviewing 55 million plus visa holders for violations, it seems likely that there will be more visa revocations. Besides, I’ve never liked the “only x number” argument. If it’s a violation of our principles as a country, it’s a violation, regardless of the number of people affected.
“None of the six who the AP says were booted for speech infractions were identified so we have no clue what was actually said.”
The State Department shared screenshots of some of the offenders’ posts (names redacted) and quoted others:
Assuming this was all the six in question wrote – and I have no doubt that the State Department would have included any calls to violence if the posts had contained any – they are in poor taste and show an alarming amount of ignorance and critical thinking skills, but they are opinions and should fall under free expression guarantees.
Now, of course, as I mentioned in my own comment, the argument could be made that staying in the U.S. as a visa holder is conditional, but, until or unless we know what the conditions are and how they are applied, this would seem to be kicking people out of the country because we don’t like what they post.
I myself would not sanction any of those comments and you had more detail than I when I quoted you. I would agree they are tasteless and not illegal but visas are not granted because no violation of law has taken place. Otherwise, anyone applying for a visa could get one provided they never broke one of our laws which they really cannot do until they are under our jurisdiction.
I do stand by my statement that the speech was not banned as it was not removed. No one is being arrested for a crime. With that said, no one has a right to a visa which was my initial statement because we do limit some or deny people visas based on a variety of reasons. This revocation might be warranted. We must keep in mind that their might be more information beyond the screenshots/ or text you provided.
CM, we’re talking ethics not law.If “mean and ugly social media posts against people this administration happens to like” was not clear listed as grounds for pulling visas, then its arbitrary and unfair to pull the visas. And as with dozens of examples we’ve discussed on Ethics Alarms, the issue isn’t whether State can pull visas for ugly social media opinions, the issue is whether it is consistent with American values to do so. And it isn’t. Exit question: where’s the harm?
I agree and, just because the posts were not removed does not mean the State Department isn’t engaging in a chilling suppression of speech. The visa holders have been punished – had their visas revoked – for posting them. At this point, what difference should it make if the posts are still available to see or not?
I agree.
You and Jack make great arguments as does Glenn below.
It can only chill the speech of foreign nationals who wish the privilege of coming to or remaining in the US. It cannot chill the speech of US citizens.
Visa’s are temporary and can be revoked. If we believe that revocation for speech is unethical then the proper course of action is to petition Congress to prohibit such revocations on those grounds.
Was it prudent to revoke those visas? Maybe not, but I was not the decision maker and I would be willing to advocate for the individuals in question if I was more aware of the totality of the circumstances.
In this case, I am merely unwilling to condemn based on very limited information. What I can glean from the texts is that these individuals are engaging in our internal politics which may in fact be legal because it does not involve a specific candidate.
However, if they are part of a foreign organization and were sent here to advocate for or against a policy then they had to register to engage in politics by law. Doing so clandestinely would be in violation of the law. Again we don’t really know a great deal about any of the persons in question so whether or not the move was legal or ethical remains a question to me.
As a matter of ethics, I think you are right. Of course, there is a “But…” in this case.
This is pure speech, and punishing people for speech, even if it is strictly lawful, sends a message that we don’t quite practice what we preach.
But in an ethical society, social opprobrium would accomplish this without the government — that is, the society would shun such individuals and make it undesirable for them to stay. Alas, today’s society is rife with those who would defend these indefensible statements not on free speech grounds, but on “Stick it to the MAGA crowd” grounds, compounding the bad behavior and sending a message that we are impotent and feckless as a society.
In the past, people of good will vastly outnumbered the idiots. That is no longer true. For this reason, to send a message that such speech is unwelcome here, the government is justified stepping in and sending it.
But that doesn’t make it ethical, or even good. Perhaps, it’s just… necessary.
We’ve previously seen student visas revoked because the foreign nationals likely had protest-and-disrupt directives from their home countries.
Maybe it’s a rationalization, and maybe is sour grapes because aliens also aren’t afforded 2A protections… But I say if similar speech isn’t allowed in their home country, then I have no problem for revoking the visa of a British national for cussing at a police horse.
ultimately relenting to “facts not in evidence” is the possibility that those being expelled were already in the proverbial doghouse; the social media postings broke the camel’s back.
I see why blaming posts could be preferred over giving specific examples of what cause was given for revocation. The 30 year old Arab green card holder that fostered ‘tentifadas’ & encouraged violence against Jewish classmates at Columbia needed to go. By using specific laws to expel him, specific laws were used to prevent that.
The Maryland Dad had final deportation orders years prior to his expulsion. The Trump administration made the mistake of pointing to that order & it was discovered that he could be deported to any country – except his country of origin, which was where he was sent. Had Trump spoken solely of the circumstantial evidence & not the deportation order, the caveat restriction on which country was off limits may not have been reported.
I didn’t watch any of the videos, but I heard of a surge of pregnant women making videos of themselves taking Tylenol because Trump made a remark about Tylenol being dangerous to the fetus. These women had no symptoms for which they were taking Tylenol; it was seen as being part of the “resistance.”
I have no data about Tylenol’s safety during pregnancy, but it’s my understanding that pregnant women should avoid taking any drugs at all that they don’t need. These women were willing to risk their fetus’s safety to demonstrate their fealty to TDS.
The AUC responds solely to what Trump says. Whatever reasons he offers is where the investigation will stop. I live in California and am being assaulted by the “YES on 50” campaign. It’s being presented as necessary to stop Trump. No explanation of what Trump will be stopped from doing, but this is unimportant for many Californians.