Hating on international students is unbecoming
'Land of the Free' free falling from grace
First, they started kidnapping and trafficking international students for exercising their First Amendment rights on US campuses. Then, they started revoking the visas of international students. After that, they barred Harvard University from enrolling international students.
This week, they halted all student visa application interviews worldwide:
“The Trump Administration has ordered US embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students as it prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants.
The department is conducting a review of existing operations and processes for screening and vetting of student and exchange visitor visa applicants,” the state department cable reads. Officials plan to issue guidance on “expanded social media vetting for all such applicants.”
The new expansion would apply social media vetting to all student visa applicants, not just those flagged for activism. Under the screening process, consular officers would examine applicants’ posts, shares, and comments across platforms such as Instagram, X and TikTok for content they deem to be threatening to national security.
There are more than one million foreign students in the US, contributing nearly $43.8bn to the economy and supporting more than 378,000 jobs in 2023 to 2024, according to NAFSA.”
So far, the judicial branch is not having it. Every judge who had a chance to rule on these illegal detentions and deportation efforts has issued blistering critiques of The Regime.
On April 30, Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi was the first to be released.
“The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said Geoffrey Crawford, a US district judge. “[The government] failed to demonstrate any legitimate interest in Mr Mahdawi’s continued confinement and his continued detention would likely have a chilling effect on protected speech.”
The next student to be freed from illegal detention was Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk.
Judge William Sessions said her continued detention “potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens. Any one of them may now avoid exercising their first amendment rights for fear of being whisked away to a detention center from their home.”
He added: “This is a woman who’s just totally committed to her academic career … There is absolutely no evidence that she has engaged in violence or advocated violence. She has no criminal record … therefore, the court finds that she does not pose a danger to the community.”
The judge said there was no evidence from the government against Öztürk other than its view of her opinion article and therefore he supported her argument that “the reason that she has been detained is simply and purely the expression that she made … in violation of her first amendment rights.”
Just days later, in the case of Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri, US district judge Patricia Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, said that Khan Suri’s release was “in the public interest to disrupt the chilling effect on protected speech” during the hearing. The judge explained in her ruling how the government did not submit sufficient evidence on several of its claims.
Though Mahmoud Khalil is still languishing in a gulag in Louisiana, this week, Judge Michael Fabriarz ruled that The Regime’s bid to deport Khalil is “unconstitutional.”
The federal government has not accused Khalil of breaking any laws. Instead, they have submitted a memo signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, arguing that Khalil’s presence in the US may pose a threat to US foreign policy interests, the same justification used against Mahdawi, Öztürk and Khan Suri.
Last but not the least, just today, a federal judge extended an order blocking the Trump administration’s attempt to bar Harvard University from enrolling international students.
According to the Associated Press, “US District Judge Allison Burroughs extended the block she imposed last week with a temporary restraining order, which allows the Ivy League school to continue enrolling international students as a lawsuit proceeds.
Harvard sued the federal government last Friday after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked its ability to host foreign students.”
All of this is extremely personal for me, as I have chronicled since my very first Substack post on Jan. 1, “Where will you be when they come for me?”
Thirty-two years ago, I was one of those young international students looking for better educational opportunities AND more freedom of speech. I grew up watching my Turkish journalist father go in and out of jail for his opinions and I was convinced that I needed to be in the United States of America to speak, report and write freely about the current events impacting our lives locally, nationally and globally.
My, oh my, how times have changed.
I have been consumed with grief and chagrin. The only reprieve is that my baba is no longer with us and did not have to witness this fall from grace, as I know in my heart how much he, too, believed in the beacon of light for the world.
We are about two weeks from the felon-elect’s precious birthday parade. There are hundreds of events planned on June 14 (quick note on the unfortunate conflict with Juneteenth events, the organizers didn’t have much choice in the matter, since the emperor with no clothes just decided to ruin that important holiday with his gauche self-aggrandizing).
Please find an event near you and support in any way you can, if you are able to do so.
Tell the bright, young people of the world that they don’t have to choose between their education and their First Amendment rights.
This former international student who is now (for the time being) a naturalized citizen thanks you.