The review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a process focused mainly on students who have been involved in what the government perceives as pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activity.
Seems unlikely this will convince anyone that disagrees with Israeli policy that they're wrong. Quite the opposite, I imagine. That can't be good for long term support of Israel by America.
In the short term, it will allow genocide to be finished. In the long term, it is quite possible it will be forgotten, excused and lied about. Eventually everyone will move on as if nothing happened, except small minority
It's unclear from the passage. The "significant expansion" sounds like it could be referring to who is being examined or the violations authorities are looking for or both.
This might be obvious to others but to me this story really made it clear to me that this is probably much about fear. Fear of stepping out of line, drawing attention to yourself and as a result at best getting into trouble, or at worst deported.
The admin makes it clear, if you have opposing views and share them, you're not welcome here.
Fall semester is about to start. Don't think the timing is a coincidence. Israel really doesn't like people criticizing and protesting against them. Especially on college campuses.
They don't care really about Israel I think, what leverage would they have to pressure the US admin to do anything? I think this is about being critical of the people in government in general. If everyone is at risk of being deported, who would go and protest anything? That would certainly make me think twice about it.
Israel has enormous leverage over the US administration, through the AIPAC, a money laundering operation disguised as political lobbying, ensuring a steady flow of money from the US treasury to Israel govt. and right back to the Congress. Check the amount your Senator receives from AIPAC here: https://www.trackaipac.com/congress
> AIPAC was founded in 1954 by Isaiah L. Kenen, a lobbyist for the Israeli government, partly to counter negative international reactions to Israel's Qibya massacre of Palestinian villagers that year.
They have been very open and vocal about their reason. And it's not just the republicans. The democrats also support it as well. Pretty much the only thing the republicans and democrats both agree on.
Speaking of fear, don't forget that "deport" doesn't mean that you will just be moved to a different country, but rather there is a good chance you will end up in a concentration camp.
The question is whether people will still want to put up with this. Why even bother going to the US anymore? I certainly won't even visit for work events any longer. I will refuse such requests. Privately I don't want to anyway.
I'm not going to go to a country that eyes me with suspicion. Especially because I'm very LGBT friendly too.
Well if they had followed the news they would have already thought twice about everything they said and did since Snowden showed the entire US population has been under constant surveillance for decades now. At the time most people didn't quite care because their country "did this in their best interest and it would never turn authoritarian". Yay land of the free.
How much of that surveillance was kept I wonder? I don't consider it unimaginable that someone would get expelled for saying something on WhatsApp 15 years ago.
I think you overestimate the degree to which those 55M people follow any news. My mother's housekeeper has a green card and has zero clue what's going on in US politics. She recently went home to Mexico with absolutely no worries about getting back into the US.
Mexico isn't the worst though. From other Latin American countries it's a lot worse.
I heard Mexico even has a deal with the US that they refuse entry to other latam visitors that they deem suspicious to avoid them going to the US via its land border. This is what a Colombian friend said. Not sure how true though.
How many "mistakes" are going to be made in this process, I wonder? A colleague of mine had his student's visa status suddenly revoked a few months ago. Fortunately, the student's lawyers successfully argued in court that there were no grounds for revocation. It still isn't clear why any of it happened.
This isn't discussed enough. One argument I've heard is that "this only applies to people who break the law".
One thing to consider is how easy is to make minor mistakes that technically count as an infraction. When acting in good faith, the administration can acknowledge this and promptly fix it, as it happened to me during my immigration process.
Then there are random mistakes out of your control. For example, when I first moved to the US and tried to get insurance for my car, I received extremely high quotes from the insurer. When I inquired why, they replied that my file showed several traffic infractions years ago in a different state. Simply clarifying that they'd mistaken me for another person was enough to fix it. Imagine if instead they deported me to a prison in El Salvador without a chance to defend myself.
And this is not talking shadier practices, such as changing the rules so that certain things suddenly become offenses, or simply fabricating evidence against someone.
No, next they'll be reviewing citizenships too in order to make sure you haven't said anything mean about Trump or Vance online. Oh sorry, to make sure you haven't said anything that goes against the fundamental values of the United States.
You must dig deeper into US history. Citizenship was revoked or frozen en masse at certain period for different races. Actually the “free” USA only happened after world war 2 and it was probably because the US was becoming the super power.
This current administration wants to end interventionism which means the old US (100% white/all Protestant) might be coming back. If you are not in that category you must start planning accordingly.
It was also revoked for American women who married foreign citizens until the early 20th century - in fact, an awful lot of my parents' friends for some reason still assume that I lost mine and automatically became a German citizen when I married my husband.
Ha. Getting German citizenship has become easier, but it's still far from automatic, and at least the way things have been the past 100 years or so, I (native-born to native-born US citizens in the US, white) would have to jump through a lot of hoops to get rid of my US citizenship.
Yes the Germans are really strict with their nationality. One thing I cannot fathom is how the Germans kept honouring the citizenship given to SS collaborators from other countries after the war.
In Holland we've had some war criminals (Dutch collaborators) that leisurely lived out their lives in Germany because they received citizenship through SS membership as thanks for their war crimes. And Germany doesn't extradite its own citizens. Also they stalled local prosecution until the people in question were too old and frail to stand trial.
I really don't understand how the western world let them get away with doing that. Every SS-derived citizenship should have been instantly revoked in 1945, all wartime laws retracted and citizens with wartime crimes extradited.
> As an US citizen, do you really want to fight for the "rights" of muslim students to chant "from the river to the sea" while burning american flags on campuses?
Vehemently, yes.
I will fight with everything available for the right of anyone to say anything critical about anyone else. Including burning the American flag, the Israeli flag, or the Palestinian flag.
Free speech is free speech. Get out of here with this authoritarian take.
Putting aside the dislike of other cultures, you're making several assumptions here. This student was of Asian descent, and was selected for their talents. The student never committed any crime or misdemeanor, was never fined, never spoke out of turn or rallied for any cause, and had no government connections. It's possible a name was mixed up, which isn't surprising as funding is being channeled from legal immigration offices to deportations. He's one of several I've heard about.
Believe it or not, the US enjoys a special status as a prominent place to study and contribute knowledge. I'm talking about students doing fundamental, valuable, possibly even patentable research. The best talent flows through here, and domestic students get to benefit from that. Because of these "mistakes", it is already the case that good talent is choosing not to come to the US. Certain other nations will benefit instead.
If you want a US for existing US citizens alone (immigration "the right way" is rapidly deteriorating), then that is what is happening. One way or another, we'll witness what the US becomes.
Your argument basically calls for ending Blackstone's ratio in the US courts and instead adopting Dwight Schrute's ratio of ” Better a thousand men are locked up than one guilty man roam free" because of your fear of immigrants having differing opinions than you.
Plenty of other responses, but I just wanted to say that your conspiracy theory about a politician marrying her brother for a visa is a complete lie. This article traces the origin of the theory, outlines who has spread it (not surprising), and generally debunks the issue: https://www.yahoo.com/news/everything-know-persistent-unprov...
I felt this important to call out because using specific examples as a caricature illustrating a purported more general point is a common discursive tactic used to dehumanize larger groups of people. "Look at what this member of group did, aren't they all barbarians?"
Since I assume your ideology is more individualistic, maybe try viewing people as individuals instead of throwing an entire group of people together and instituting collective blame for purported wrongs.
1) I probably know very little about the rules & laws of your country, so it's fair that you clearly don't know much about America's Constitution/Bill of Rights. One of several violations of the constitution you're espousing, trashing Freedom of Speech is trashing an inalienable right in the US, arguably the MOST important. So yes, I want people incl. visa holders talking smack about the US and burning flags and perhaps most importantly not fearing losing citizenship for criticizing a foreign government. Esp. if it's a foreign power which is likely supplying a list of the visas that are to be revoked. Flag-burnings and criticism of the US govt are the chirping birdies in the mineshaft of freedom. You and other non-Americans think that they are experts in US governance from watching the TV. It's likely that you know more about it than the average US citizen knows about their (your) country's laws, but I'd suggest doing some more research. Or y'know just stick to expressing opinions about your country's govt, if they allow that.
2) Good to hear that my life (a born and bred 9th generation US citizen) and the lives of many others can be torn asunder as a rounding error. My community and myself have built their lives around people who are in the US on a variety of long-term visas that were guaranteed until oh say 213 days ago.
3) Unless your side can get the big dub (100 Year Reich), the pendulum swings both ways, baby. Probably going to be a while because there's no left-wing party in the US, but sooner or later this pain will be revisited upon your American counterparts tenfold. I don't like this, to be clear. I want that pendulum resting right in the middle.
4, I guess? I don't know anything about the Somali guy but sounds like you're admitting you don't either. You could start your research there but like many things foreign conservative critics of America point out, it doesn't sound particularly germane to national American politics.
Sounds like you’re terrified of immigrants for lack of human understanding.
Like a child.
Here’s the thing - this whole experiment was built on stolen land with slave labor and there can never be immigration “justice” on stolen land.
What problem is being solved by making “a few mistakes” because that’s what you have to do in such situations?
Libertarian conservatives like yourself have created a service based economy where labor can’t afford to live where the work is making the economy inherently dependent on immigrants of any stripe.
But like so many other things understood by people who think like 8 year olds we will have to learn the hard way that, for example, scaring away all the illegal Mexicans will result in billions in food losses and price increases on everything, but at least we got some bad immigrants, right?
Seems inflated. Reliable estimates run around 2/3 of that. Higher numbers always seem anchored only by handwavey 'there must be more because reasons', which is why you regularly see people claiming sums of 20m, 30m, 40m. The current president has a habit of picking arbitrary numbers based on his feelings, but that doesn't sem a very reliable system to me.
Surely includes a lot of tourist visas, and many of these people might be outside the US already but the visa just hasn't expired yet. Or people who need to come frequently for business trips.
What does non-immigrant actually mean? The h1b/l1b that is hugely popular in tech are both legally defined as “non-immigrant” visas, yet both include very widely used legal paths to permanent residency and citizenship for the holders - immigration.
My point being, this distinction may not mean what it might appear with a layman’s or dictionary based understanding of the phrase “non-immigrant visa”.
Birthright citizenship revocation being applied retroactively is definitely lower hanging fruit than that. If that happens I would be concerned about naturalized citizens, but only then.
Denaturalization is a process which exists and has been used for years, scaling up the intensity of its use is a much easier thing (and one which both the current [0] and the previous [1] Trump Administration actually have done) than ending birthright citizenship.
Since it is, in fact, already happening, I think it is a mistake to view it as something to worry about only if and when the administration succeeds in overturning birthright citizenship.
> Isn’t this strictly for convicted criminals, though?
No.
Denaturalization is a civil process that does not require a criminal conviction, and the people that have been denaturalized are not always convicted criminals.
(Denaturalization usually involves an allegation that could also be pursued as a crime, such as fraud against the government, but that's very much not the same as it applying only to convicted criminals.)
Source? I haven’t seen anything about it and I just googled again and still don’t see anything (though that could be Google’s fault).
I think legally it is possible since Supreme Court decisions are applied retroactively in general (just not the existing EO one because the EO was forward looking), but that would be super unpopular since it’s basically a huge rug pull and I’m skeptical they would do it.
Right so the thing that happened already they were working on before it happened, I agree. It seems like you are agitated about this and jumping to unsupported conclusions?
this is done to deport all pro-Palestine and anti-Zionist visa holders, with the help of Palantir.
Social media posts have been scrubbed, list of people have been prepared, just a matter of cross-checking whether they are non-citizens and can be deported
I bet it's much more a campaign to instil fear in people with non-citizen status in general and for them to watch what they're doing and saying in general.
People are already spread too thin to revolt anyway, the billionaire masters made sure of that by lowering wages until people were just near enough the poverty line that losing their job would mean ruin. Can't go protest if you have to put food on the table. Now you also have to worry not to be taken out of your community and sent to a random 3rd country. I bet that makes people be quiet real quick. I bet we'll see a widening of what's un-acceptable by the administration.
The reason for the flag is always the same: because they don’t want to talk about it here.
The real question is: why don’t people want to talk about it? I’ve found it typically falls into three camps:
One group flags these kinds of stories because they’re exhausted, and can’t stomach any more. I feel bad for this group, and I understand the impulse.
Another group flags because suppressing information about what the administration is up to aligns with their personal ideology. This is the more dangerous group, and I’m always sad to see people coming out in support of awful stuff like this.
The last group flags it because it annoys them, and they don’t want to engage with it. It makes them uncomfortable and they feel it doesn’t impact them. They point to the HN guidelines and say it’s not relevant. It is, they’re just lucky enough to have not been affected personally by anything yet.
There are obviously N groups but one you're missing might be the people that just don't think it's a topic that fits the purpose of this space, at least how it's stated in the guidelines.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I can't help but feel that stories like these fall under "off-topic".
It's extensively covered by mainstream media and it's unrelated to tech other than the few individuals that have a visa that's relevant here. Does this article really "gratify one's intellectual curiosity"?
very relevant, as the govenment may be mixing up the perfect own goal hat trick, by undermining american competitiveness in tech, agriculture, and so called "essential" workers through depertations and closing of institutions, while trying to "tarrify" the world into submission, to the point that the US postal service is jamming and juddering from what must be the memo epocolypse.
proof?, Xi is smiling again, after years of bieng kinda grim looking.
Officials say the reviews will include all visa holders’ social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in their home countries, along with any actionable violations of U.S. law committed while they were in the United States.
The reviews will include new tools for data collection on past, present and future visa applicants, including a complete scouring of social media sites made possible by new requirements introduced earlier this year. Those make it mandatory for privacy switches on cellphones and other electronic devices or apps to be turned off when an applicant appears for a visa interview.
"I have nothing to hide" kind of people will get a nice surprise when they will be deported for liking a post against Trump...
There is no way 55 million visas can be reviewed in any reasonable amount of time (cue the "AI can do it" comments). The number of H1B visa holders is a tiny fraction of 55m, if they cared about reviewing those, it'd require a lot less in time and resources.
Targeting H1b would also result in much stronger legal opposition. It takes a year to process less than 100k H1B applications annually, and companies have to pay thousands processing fees for each one. The goal of this is to discourage foreign students, refugee claimants and tourist visa holders from coming to America.
"Those make it mandatory for privacy switches on cellphones and other electronic devices or apps to be _turned off_ when an applicant appears for a _visa interview_."
This is direct violation of GDPR and similar law. US may go fuck themselves with such interviews. I will never set my foot in that dumpster. It also sets really bad precedent - EU will retaliate and soon we all will have to unlock and present our phones at any (semi)official procedure. Hell, even when board a train or a bus ... What a joke! Time to tell personal electronic devices good bye.
I'm sure there's more. The type of people who clamor for power often do so for the ability to do amoral things.
It's unsuprising theres a mix of nazis and israelis at the helm of America's "self interest" and there's criminals, child molestors, rapists constantly being squeezed out.
Nothing really to see here. Normal course of business, except maybe that reviewing all 55m systematically is gonna take a while with all the database joins you will have to do across disparate systems.
Sure, f you trust the administration to rely on objective standards rather than making arbitrary and capricious decisions at scale. Looking at social media, I see a lot of people (including GOP county chairs, example below) saying things like 'deport them all, let them reapply for re-entry,' which kinda proves the argument that it was never about illegal immigration in the first place.
If you have ever had to apply for a Schengen Visa to enter the EU, then you will know how strict the EU is (even hotels want to see your passport and record it).
Nobody is saying it should be as easy to immigrate to the US as it is to immigrate to The Netherlands, they are saying that immigrating to the US should be easier than this administration is making it.
> Nobody is saying it should be as easy to immigrate to the US as it is to immigrate to The Netherlands, they are saying that immigrating to the US should be easier than this administration is making it.
Ah, we're not talking about the same thing.
I drew the comparison to The Netherlands' list of reasons for why they would revoke or deny your VISA (which is what the article is about w.r.t. the US), and it is not dissimilar.
I wasn't contrasting ease of immigration between the two countries. It is a mixed bag, but for educated immigrants the it is generally easier to immigrate to The Netherlands than the US (if you are doing so outside the law, I'm going to guess it is much easier "to make it work" in the US than in The Netherlands - both in terms of getting in but also to make a living). There are some notable barriers like you cannot have dual citizenship (the US allows). On the other hand, demand for immigration to the US is much higher, which, together with more arcane and byzantine regulations result in other structural barriers.
> Nothing really to see here. Normal course of business [...]
> well, its more difficult elsewhere so this must be fine
I don't see a difference between these. The "more difficult elsewhere" in the supposedly shifted goalposts is the "normal course of business" in the first comment.
Changing our policies to make the process more chaotic is not our normal course of business, nor is it “nothing to see” as it will directly affect people.
Yeah, you're right; I did not understand the context. This is obviously a motte and bailey.
"Nothing to see here" (even referring to the title alone) is the hard to defend position and when that's called out as ridiculous they say that they were just talking about the actually normal things that countries do for immigration, which nobody is going to argue with.
The end goal being for the "nothing to see here" that everybody is looking at to become normal.
FWIW, part of my engagement is to try to understand the real risk vs. alarmism (i.e. as reported).
My understanding is that the material change is that there is somewhat more leeway for the government to interpret what it means to be "to be of good moral character".
You should know that when you apply for citizenship, for example, they have for many years asked you about traffic violations, which, theoretically have always been allowable as input in deciding "of good moral character".
Another is whether you have ever supported the Communist Party or been involved in prostitution, and a whole host of other things. Check out page 14 ("General Eligibility and Inadmissability Grounds") on the form: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/i-4...
I have not read the actual policy change, so I don't know whether it has actually changed or whether it is just being more rigorously applied AND/OR targeted (biased) more.
If you can articulate it precisely, that would be nice for all of us here since the article is not sufficiently objective or illuminating.
> If you can articulate it precisely, that would be nice for all of us
Strongly agree - how nice would it be if this administration cared enough to do just that?
In any case, your understanding is severely incorrect; please read the second half of the article. Here are some helpful paragraphs:
>The administration has steadily imposed more restrictions and requirements on visa applicants, including requiring them to submit to in-person interviews. The review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a process focused mainly on students who have been involved in what the government perceives as pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activity.
>Officials say the reviews will include all visa holders’ social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in their home countries, along with any actionable violations of U.S. law committed while they were in the United States.
>The reviews will include new tools for data collection on past, present and future visa applicants, including a complete scouring of social media sites made possible by new requirements introduced earlier this year. Those make it mandatory for privacy switches on cellphones and other electronic devices or apps to be turned off when an applicant appears for a visa interview.
So, looks like we have intentional ambiguity coupled with mass surveillance. Do you not see how that is problematic?
> [...] the article is not sufficiently objective.
Might there be some confusion between objectivity and your own bias? Playing the innocent enlighted centrist about immigration policies this far in to 2025 seems either wildly ignorant or dangerously veiled.
Here are some links from several months ago for understanding and "engagement":
>The administration has steadily imposed more restrictions and requirements on visa applicants, including requiring them to submit to in-person interviews.
This is NOT new.
In most cases, in-person interviews have always been required at a US embassy or consulate abroad. I know this not only from personal experience but you can also double check if you don't believe me: https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://travel.s...
There are certain exceptions:
- interview waivers: certain applications may qualify to skip, e.g. children under 14, adults 80+, some renewing applications
- certain visa categories: diplomats and some official travelers.
That said, US consular officers have always had the discretion to require an interview even if you might otherwise qualify for a waiver.
>Officials say the reviews will include all visa holders’ social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in their home countries, along with any actionable violations of U.S. law committed while they were in the United States.
Do you object to all of these or only some? I can see objecting to social media account review, but surely actionable violations of US law committed while in the US any reasonable person can agree that that can be cause for denying or revoking your VISA. Surely?
That recording is actually unlawful. They can look at it, and compare it with your face, write up the address in their systems, and that should be it. This practice of copying passports/id-cards is malpractice. The (european) issuers actually say so!
It's certainly to be some sort of political litmus test with a quick perusal of social media for anything other than rabid Trump support along with a test for darker tone of skin or country of origin that is out of favor, to bulk up their failure to kick out enough migrants (not coming close to their stated goals of 1000s per day) through the means they have used so far with fake justification, ticky tacky legal and paperwork issues used to justify deportation.
Whether or not the person has ever attended an anti-Israel protest is an objective standard that is not arbitrary. There are lots of bad things to say, but it's not arbitrary or unobjective.
The 'arbitrary and capricious' part (a legal term of art) is in saying things like attending a protest constitute grounds for deportation absent any published rules or guidance to this effect. While statute law gives wide discretion to the Secretary of State and Attorney-General in immigration matters, there's still an obligation for transparency and process, which is why there's a whole infrastructure set up for contestation, appeals and so on. You cannot just start issuing orders of removal based on, say, whether people like waffles.
As a side note, Israel isn't a US state the last time I looked. I doubt that a blanket ban on political expression could survive a first amendment challenge.
> is in saying things like attending a protest constitute grounds for deportation absent any published rules or guidance to this effect.
The law is clear that if you support a terrorist group, your visa application can be denied or your current visa revoked.
If we take Hamas for example, they are designated a terrorist group by: European Union, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Paraguay, United Kingdom, United States, Organization of American States, Switzerland[1]
If you are in the US on a non-immigrant visa (you are a guest) and you go to a rally in support of Hamas, I struggle to understand why it would be controversial that the US can revoke your visa ("your permission to be in the US").
I appreciate the answer. I guess "attending a protest" falls under "public awareness" or "cultural legitimacy" if the protest is specifically about the organization being unpopular or demonized. Sticking with the Gaza situation example, most protests are along the lines of "Israel shouldn't do that" and not "Hamas needs more support". Claiming otherwise seems massively disingenuous; it's obvious that people oppose terrorism and Israel's actions for largely the same reasons.
> Sticking with the Gaza situation example, most protests are along the lines of "Israel shouldn't do that" and not "Hamas needs more support".
Yes, here is the nuance, which I concur with and I would hope most reasonable people could agree on.
In practice, protests are a mix of people but onlookers take a binary stance. It is not going to be difficult to see at protest a poster or cameras capture someone shouting something like "globalize the infitada! or or death to America".
Complicating matters further, protest organizers and the protesters themselves have more of a fluid behavior and motivations - it is not a club where membership is controlled and patrolled, a protest's mission is usually a little vague and fluid, etc.
And that is, I think, where the real risk lies - you are at a protest and you can find yourself surrounded by others who ARE supporting Hamas even if you're not and you get lumped together.
This happens on "the right" as well. You'll have some Neo-Nazi's in a conservative protest against XYZ, and now all of a sudden they're all Nazi's.
> And that is, I think, where the real risk lies - you are at a protest and you can find yourself surrounded by others who ARE supporting Hamas even if you're not and you get lumped together.
This is incredibly dubious. Not only the idea that I would find myself around any number of people explicitly supporting Hamas but also the idea that I would be confused as being part of them. (Like, I can just walk away and tell others that I disagree with the dumb shit they're saying.) People are told not to say dumb shit at the protests I go to; anyone saying something explicitly pro-violence is an obvious agitator.
> This happens on "the right" as well. You'll have some Neo-Nazi's in a conservative protest against XYZ, and now all of a sudden they're all Nazi's.
This is not an equivalent comparison. It's not like there's a grassroots movement of Hamas sympathizers in America that have inspired songs to be written about them. But neo-Nazis... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYKAQZUAbHU
But don't you think it's at least a little bit telling that you automatically jump to neo-Nazis showing up at "conservative protests"? What makes the protest "conservative" and why do you present it as a truism that such an event would appeal to neo-Nazis? One might assume that the neo-Nazis are loudly told to FUCK OFF when they show up... well, anywhere, a "conservative protest" included, but one would also imagine that they'd eventually stop showing up to such events, at least not openly as neo-Nazis. It seems like they keep showing up to them because they are welcome at them.
An actual rally for Hamas? Or rather deliberate conflation of supporting Palestinians and their right to resist occupiers and genocide in their home country? [0].
The Taliban sucks shit. I also thought that the war in Afghanistan was a monstrous campaign of death and I publicly said this throughout the war. Should I be punished by the state for "supporting a terrorist group?"
I'm very sorry but advocating for not bombing hospitals in Gaza is not "supporting a terrorist group."
> I'm very sorry but advocating for not bombing hospitals in Gaza is not "supporting a terrorist group."
I don't think we disagree on this.
In practice, protests are a mix of people but onlookers take a binary stance. It is not going to be difficult to see at protest a poster or cameras capture someone shouting something like "globalize the infitada! or or death to America".
Complicating matters further, protest organizers and the protesters themselves have more of a fluid behavior and motivations - it is not a club where membership is controlled and patrolled, a protest's mission is usually a little vague and fluid, etc.
And that is, I think, where the real risk lies - you are at a protest and you can find yourself surrounded by others who ARE supporting Hamas even if you're not and you get lumped together.
This happens on "the right" as well. You'll have some Neo-Nazi's in a conservative protest against XYZ, and now all of a sudden they're all Nazi's.
I've literally never seen a pro-Hamas protestor at an anti-Israel rally, but neo-Nazis seem to be at every conservative rally. Why is that? Is it because conservatives support free speech?
> To most sensible people, that’s an easily recognizable false equivalence.
Zionists and their ethically bankrupt apologists disgust me, and those views are not welcome here.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but perhaps what I can say is that I'm trying to be hyper-precise about the boundaries (as I see them at least), rather than move them.
I think it is fine to be outraged about:
a) systematic racist (read: selective) application of the law
b) no due process
c) egregious mistakes
d) commanding the military to stampede cities (ok, in reality, it is more show than scary, but the precedent is unacceptable)
What I don't think is valid is arguing that the government should not apply the law as it stands, which empowers the government to revoke or deny visas (or residency application or naturalization application) for reasons enumerated by the State Department: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...
The test may not be arbitrary. How the test was chosen is. A CAPTCHA is an objective test; forcing everyone in high school to take one is arbitrary.
(Also, to my knowledge, mere attendance wouldn’t constitute a lawful reason to eject. Material support would have to have been offered, e.g. fundraising for Hamas.
> it is another thing to punish people protesting a third country israel.
> it just signifies who really occupies all positions of power in this country
who is this group of people who occupy all positions of power in this country?
men? white men? republicans? billionaires? women? straights?
which group of people have their grabby hands all over the positions of power in this country?
I honestly don't, and don't think there is such a thing. Which is why I'm challenging you to articulate which "group" you think controls the key positions of power...
They're going to do a few keyword searches for things "Gaza" and "universal healthcare" and try to mass-deport anyone who used those words on social media. And if no one tries to stop them, then it will happen. Habeas Corpus is gone.
This is not normal course of business at all. This is probably a wave of capricious decision making to "meet quota" because they are not able to find and catch illegal immigrants to make news.
This is only about protecting Israel.
From the article:
The review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a process focused mainly on students who have been involved in what the government perceives as pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activity.
Seems unlikely this will convince anyone that disagrees with Israeli policy that they're wrong. Quite the opposite, I imagine. That can't be good for long term support of Israel by America.
In the short term, it will allow genocide to be finished. In the long term, it is quite possible it will be forgotten, excused and lied about. Eventually everyone will move on as if nothing happened, except small minority
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Happened to Native Americans and many other people in history. Not sure why it’s impossible.
It was originally about that, but this expansion appears to be more general, no?
It's unclear from the passage. The "significant expansion" sounds like it could be referring to who is being examined or the violations authorities are looking for or both.
only is doing a lot of heavy lifting to excuse punishing having the wrong opinion in the freedom nation.
America first etc etc
This is not at all about protecting Israel. That's just an antisemitic pretense—a way to scapegoat "the Jews" for all this authoritarian crap.
How the comment is antisemitic, I don't get it.
This might be obvious to others but to me this story really made it clear to me that this is probably much about fear. Fear of stepping out of line, drawing attention to yourself and as a result at best getting into trouble, or at worst deported.
The admin makes it clear, if you have opposing views and share them, you're not welcome here.
Fall semester is about to start. Don't think the timing is a coincidence. Israel really doesn't like people criticizing and protesting against them. Especially on college campuses.
They don't care really about Israel I think, what leverage would they have to pressure the US admin to do anything? I think this is about being critical of the people in government in general. If everyone is at risk of being deported, who would go and protest anything? That would certainly make me think twice about it.
Israel has enormous leverage over the US administration, through the AIPAC, a money laundering operation disguised as political lobbying, ensuring a steady flow of money from the US treasury to Israel govt. and right back to the Congress. Check the amount your Senator receives from AIPAC here: https://www.trackaipac.com/congress
From AIPAC themselves: (https://www.aipacpac.org/)
> Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.
> %98 of AIPAC-backed candidates won their general elections.
> $70M contributed through AIPAC to support pro-Israel candidates.
> We helped defeat 24 candidates who would have undermined the US-Israel relationship.
Democracy anybody?
Now imagine Russia had a similar organization, what would the reaction be? Yet when it's Israel, it's somehow fine.
From Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC)
> AIPAC was founded in 1954 by Isaiah L. Kenen, a lobbyist for the Israeli government, partly to counter negative international reactions to Israel's Qibya massacre of Palestinian villagers that year.
They have been very open and vocal about their reason. And it's not just the republicans. The democrats also support it as well. Pretty much the only thing the republicans and democrats both agree on.
Democratic politicians* the voters very much do not support Israel.
I don't understand how you can ask that question with a straight face given the last 50 odd years.
Speaking of fear, don't forget that "deport" doesn't mean that you will just be moved to a different country, but rather there is a good chance you will end up in a concentration camp.
The question is whether people will still want to put up with this. Why even bother going to the US anymore? I certainly won't even visit for work events any longer. I will refuse such requests. Privately I don't want to anyway.
I'm not going to go to a country that eyes me with suspicion. Especially because I'm very LGBT friendly too.
Absolutely. Every single one of those 55M people will think twice about every aspect of their life. It will be debilitating for many of them.
How long can support for this last?
Well if they had followed the news they would have already thought twice about everything they said and did since Snowden showed the entire US population has been under constant surveillance for decades now. At the time most people didn't quite care because their country "did this in their best interest and it would never turn authoritarian". Yay land of the free.
How much of that surveillance was kept I wonder? I don't consider it unimaginable that someone would get expelled for saying something on WhatsApp 15 years ago.
I think you overestimate the degree to which those 55M people follow any news. My mother's housekeeper has a green card and has zero clue what's going on in US politics. She recently went home to Mexico with absolutely no worries about getting back into the US.
Mexico isn't the worst though. From other Latin American countries it's a lot worse.
I heard Mexico even has a deal with the US that they refuse entry to other latam visitors that they deem suspicious to avoid them going to the US via its land border. This is what a Colombian friend said. Not sure how true though.
How many "mistakes" are going to be made in this process, I wonder? A colleague of mine had his student's visa status suddenly revoked a few months ago. Fortunately, the student's lawyers successfully argued in court that there were no grounds for revocation. It still isn't clear why any of it happened.
This isn't discussed enough. One argument I've heard is that "this only applies to people who break the law".
One thing to consider is how easy is to make minor mistakes that technically count as an infraction. When acting in good faith, the administration can acknowledge this and promptly fix it, as it happened to me during my immigration process.
Then there are random mistakes out of your control. For example, when I first moved to the US and tried to get insurance for my car, I received extremely high quotes from the insurer. When I inquired why, they replied that my file showed several traffic infractions years ago in a different state. Simply clarifying that they'd mistaken me for another person was enough to fix it. Imagine if instead they deported me to a prison in El Salvador without a chance to defend myself.
And this is not talking shadier practices, such as changing the rules so that certain things suddenly become offenses, or simply fabricating evidence against someone.
Is Freedom of Speech only meant for US citizens?
No, next they'll be reviewing citizenships too in order to make sure you haven't said anything mean about Trump or Vance online. Oh sorry, to make sure you haven't said anything that goes against the fundamental values of the United States.
Ostracism was core of Athenian democracy, and yes it was politicized often.
No democracy for enemies of democracy.
It was reserved to highly ranked influential politicians, though. Also quite rare as far as we can tell.
They better be careful, saying something true online is less work than the renunciation process to demand the freedoms everyone else is born with.
You must dig deeper into US history. Citizenship was revoked or frozen en masse at certain period for different races. Actually the “free” USA only happened after world war 2 and it was probably because the US was becoming the super power.
This current administration wants to end interventionism which means the old US (100% white/all Protestant) might be coming back. If you are not in that category you must start planning accordingly.
It was also revoked for American women who married foreign citizens until the early 20th century - in fact, an awful lot of my parents' friends for some reason still assume that I lost mine and automatically became a German citizen when I married my husband.
Ha. Getting German citizenship has become easier, but it's still far from automatic, and at least the way things have been the past 100 years or so, I (native-born to native-born US citizens in the US, white) would have to jump through a lot of hoops to get rid of my US citizenship.
Yes the Germans are really strict with their nationality. One thing I cannot fathom is how the Germans kept honouring the citizenship given to SS collaborators from other countries after the war.
In Holland we've had some war criminals (Dutch collaborators) that leisurely lived out their lives in Germany because they received citizenship through SS membership as thanks for their war crimes. And Germany doesn't extradite its own citizens. Also they stalled local prosecution until the people in question were too old and frail to stand trial.
I really don't understand how the western world let them get away with doing that. Every SS-derived citizenship should have been instantly revoked in 1945, all wartime laws retracted and citizens with wartime crimes extradited.
Source (sorry in Dutch) https://duitslandinstituut.nl/artikel/174/hoe-duitsland-met-...
Seriously, would love to have not had to spent 3 years backfilling paperwork, and paying $2000+CAD (after lawyer fees) to renounce.
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> As an US citizen, do you really want to fight for the "rights" of muslim students to chant "from the river to the sea" while burning american flags on campuses?
Vehemently, yes.
I will fight with everything available for the right of anyone to say anything critical about anyone else. Including burning the American flag, the Israeli flag, or the Palestinian flag.
Free speech is free speech. Get out of here with this authoritarian take.
“Break a few eggs”. This is digusting rhetoric.
Horrifying how illiberal vast swathes of the US and also parts of HN have become in a very short few years.
Putting aside the dislike of other cultures, you're making several assumptions here. This student was of Asian descent, and was selected for their talents. The student never committed any crime or misdemeanor, was never fined, never spoke out of turn or rallied for any cause, and had no government connections. It's possible a name was mixed up, which isn't surprising as funding is being channeled from legal immigration offices to deportations. He's one of several I've heard about.
Believe it or not, the US enjoys a special status as a prominent place to study and contribute knowledge. I'm talking about students doing fundamental, valuable, possibly even patentable research. The best talent flows through here, and domestic students get to benefit from that. Because of these "mistakes", it is already the case that good talent is choosing not to come to the US. Certain other nations will benefit instead.
If you want a US for existing US citizens alone (immigration "the right way" is rapidly deteriorating), then that is what is happening. One way or another, we'll witness what the US becomes.
Are you "an" US citizen?
Your argument basically calls for ending Blackstone's ratio in the US courts and instead adopting Dwight Schrute's ratio of ” Better a thousand men are locked up than one guilty man roam free" because of your fear of immigrants having differing opinions than you.
Plenty of other responses, but I just wanted to say that your conspiracy theory about a politician marrying her brother for a visa is a complete lie. This article traces the origin of the theory, outlines who has spread it (not surprising), and generally debunks the issue: https://www.yahoo.com/news/everything-know-persistent-unprov...
I felt this important to call out because using specific examples as a caricature illustrating a purported more general point is a common discursive tactic used to dehumanize larger groups of people. "Look at what this member of group did, aren't they all barbarians?"
Since I assume your ideology is more individualistic, maybe try viewing people as individuals instead of throwing an entire group of people together and instituting collective blame for purported wrongs.
1) I probably know very little about the rules & laws of your country, so it's fair that you clearly don't know much about America's Constitution/Bill of Rights. One of several violations of the constitution you're espousing, trashing Freedom of Speech is trashing an inalienable right in the US, arguably the MOST important. So yes, I want people incl. visa holders talking smack about the US and burning flags and perhaps most importantly not fearing losing citizenship for criticizing a foreign government. Esp. if it's a foreign power which is likely supplying a list of the visas that are to be revoked. Flag-burnings and criticism of the US govt are the chirping birdies in the mineshaft of freedom. You and other non-Americans think that they are experts in US governance from watching the TV. It's likely that you know more about it than the average US citizen knows about their (your) country's laws, but I'd suggest doing some more research. Or y'know just stick to expressing opinions about your country's govt, if they allow that.
2) Good to hear that my life (a born and bred 9th generation US citizen) and the lives of many others can be torn asunder as a rounding error. My community and myself have built their lives around people who are in the US on a variety of long-term visas that were guaranteed until oh say 213 days ago.
3) Unless your side can get the big dub (100 Year Reich), the pendulum swings both ways, baby. Probably going to be a while because there's no left-wing party in the US, but sooner or later this pain will be revisited upon your American counterparts tenfold. I don't like this, to be clear. I want that pendulum resting right in the middle.
4, I guess? I don't know anything about the Somali guy but sounds like you're admitting you don't either. You could start your research there but like many things foreign conservative critics of America point out, it doesn't sound particularly germane to national American politics.
Sounds like you’re terrified of immigrants for lack of human understanding. Like a child. Here’s the thing - this whole experiment was built on stolen land with slave labor and there can never be immigration “justice” on stolen land. What problem is being solved by making “a few mistakes” because that’s what you have to do in such situations? Libertarian conservatives like yourself have created a service based economy where labor can’t afford to live where the work is making the economy inherently dependent on immigrants of any stripe. But like so many other things understood by people who think like 8 year olds we will have to learn the hard way that, for example, scaring away all the illegal Mexicans will result in billions in food losses and price increases on everything, but at least we got some bad immigrants, right?
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55M visa holders ???
I had no idea it was that many.
I thought 18M undocumented was a high %age!
342M people in the US. 16% visa holders
I wonder how that compares to other countries?
https://www.census.gov/popclock/
https://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-born/about....
Historically this isn't exceptional, and is arguably a reversion ot hte mean following the disruption of a WW2 and its aftershocks.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm...
I thought 18M undocumented was a high %age!
Seems inflated. Reliable estimates run around 2/3 of that. Higher numbers always seem anchored only by handwavey 'there must be more because reasons', which is why you regularly see people claiming sums of 20m, 30m, 40m. The current president has a habit of picking arbitrary numbers based on his feelings, but that doesn't sem a very reliable system to me.
https://ohss.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/2024_0418_o...
Surely includes a lot of tourist visas, and many of these people might be outside the US already but the visa just hasn't expired yet. Or people who need to come frequently for business trips.
Tourist visas, Business visas, temporary work visas
There are 55m visas, majority of which are non immigrant visas.
What does non-immigrant actually mean? The h1b/l1b that is hugely popular in tech are both legally defined as “non-immigrant” visas, yet both include very widely used legal paths to permanent residency and citizenship for the holders - immigration.
My point being, this distinction may not mean what it might appear with a layman’s or dictionary based understanding of the phrase “non-immigrant visa”.
I (journalists), P (sports), L (internal company moves), F (students)
I know a few people with two visas - an I visa for work and a B1 for tourism
75% of non immigrant visas are normal tourist/business visa you need to go to a trade show in vegas or go to Disneyland.
The H category was under 10% of non immigrant visas.
Think about what a "visa holder" might be and then try your comment again.
Naturalized citizens are up next.
Birthright citizenship revocation being applied retroactively is definitely lower hanging fruit than that. If that happens I would be concerned about naturalized citizens, but only then.
Denaturalization is a process which exists and has been used for years, scaling up the intensity of its use is a much easier thing (and one which both the current [0] and the previous [1] Trump Administration actually have done) than ending birthright citizenship.
Since it is, in fact, already happening, I think it is a mistake to view it as something to worry about only if and when the administration succeeds in overturning birthright citizenship.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5445398/denaturalizatio...
[1] https://www.acslaw.org/expertforum/trump-administration-seek...
Isn’t this strictly for convicted criminals, though? I imagine this goes along with the T&Cs of being naturalized?
I didn’t read GP as being worried specifically about convicted criminals.
> Isn’t this strictly for convicted criminals, though?
No.
Denaturalization is a civil process that does not require a criminal conviction, and the people that have been denaturalized are not always convicted criminals.
(Denaturalization usually involves an allegation that could also be pursued as a crime, such as fraud against the government, but that's very much not the same as it applying only to convicted criminals.)
"If that happens" is still an "if", but, I mean, Republicans are actively working on that as we speak.
Source? I haven’t seen anything about it and I just googled again and still don’t see anything (though that could be Google’s fault).
I think legally it is possible since Supreme Court decisions are applied retroactively in general (just not the existing EO one because the EO was forward looking), but that would be super unpopular since it’s basically a huge rug pull and I’m skeptical they would do it.
I don’t know how it would apply retroactively but as a principle? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c983g6zpz28o
Right so the thing that happened already they were working on before it happened, I agree. It seems like you are agitated about this and jumping to unsupported conclusions?
this is done to deport all pro-Palestine and anti-Zionist visa holders, with the help of Palantir.
Social media posts have been scrubbed, list of people have been prepared, just a matter of cross-checking whether they are non-citizens and can be deported
https://amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/palantir-babel-street-s...
I bet it's much more a campaign to instil fear in people with non-citizen status in general and for them to watch what they're doing and saying in general.
People are already spread too thin to revolt anyway, the billionaire masters made sure of that by lowering wages until people were just near enough the poverty line that losing their job would mean ruin. Can't go protest if you have to put food on the table. Now you also have to worry not to be taken out of your community and sent to a random 3rd country. I bet that makes people be quiet real quick. I bet we'll see a widening of what's un-acceptable by the administration.
Why is this flagged, can anyone explain?
Seems relevant since a lot of tech ppl are on visa
The reason for the flag is always the same: because they don’t want to talk about it here.
The real question is: why don’t people want to talk about it? I’ve found it typically falls into three camps:
One group flags these kinds of stories because they’re exhausted, and can’t stomach any more. I feel bad for this group, and I understand the impulse.
Another group flags because suppressing information about what the administration is up to aligns with their personal ideology. This is the more dangerous group, and I’m always sad to see people coming out in support of awful stuff like this.
The last group flags it because it annoys them, and they don’t want to engage with it. It makes them uncomfortable and they feel it doesn’t impact them. They point to the HN guidelines and say it’s not relevant. It is, they’re just lucky enough to have not been affected personally by anything yet.
I pity the last group, honestly.
There are obviously N groups but one you're missing might be the people that just don't think it's a topic that fits the purpose of this space, at least how it's stated in the guidelines.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I can't help but feel that stories like these fall under "off-topic".
How can a story about US visas be off topic when YC itself posts a visa AMA with their immigration lawyer several times a year?
> How can a story about US visas be off topic
It's extensively covered by mainstream media and it's unrelated to tech other than the few individuals that have a visa that's relevant here. Does this article really "gratify one's intellectual curiosity"?
You missed the second half of the question you responded to. That changes the context.
You have to have some sort of cut off since anything can relevant to people in tech.
The story about the British Queen dying wasn’t flagged as off topic and that was exhaustively covered by media world wide
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Possibly a fourth group of startup founders and investors that don't want H1B pipelines to dry up as a result of constant bad news.
> Possibly a fourth group of startup founders and investors that don't want H1B pipelines to dry up as a result of constant bad news.
Seems far fetched, if anything H1B are limited BECAUSE of the H1B cap/lottery system
very relevant, as the govenment may be mixing up the perfect own goal hat trick, by undermining american competitiveness in tech, agriculture, and so called "essential" workers through depertations and closing of institutions, while trying to "tarrify" the world into submission, to the point that the US postal service is jamming and juddering from what must be the memo epocolypse. proof?, Xi is smiling again, after years of bieng kinda grim looking.
The fell fast on the slippery slope in US.
"I have nothing to hide" kind of people will get a nice surprise when they will be deported for liking a post against Trump...Does this include H-1B fraud?
There is no way 55 million visas can be reviewed in any reasonable amount of time (cue the "AI can do it" comments). The number of H1B visa holders is a tiny fraction of 55m, if they cared about reviewing those, it'd require a lot less in time and resources.
Targeting H1b would also result in much stronger legal opposition. It takes a year to process less than 100k H1B applications annually, and companies have to pay thousands processing fees for each one. The goal of this is to discourage foreign students, refugee claimants and tourist visa holders from coming to America.
It should.
Anything that implicates businesses, unles clearly run by dirty communists, will be ignored.
"Those make it mandatory for privacy switches on cellphones and other electronic devices or apps to be _turned off_ when an applicant appears for a _visa interview_." This is direct violation of GDPR and similar law. US may go fuck themselves with such interviews. I will never set my foot in that dumpster. It also sets really bad precedent - EU will retaliate and soon we all will have to unlock and present our phones at any (semi)official procedure. Hell, even when board a train or a bus ... What a joke! Time to tell personal electronic devices good bye.
Well, the Israeli child abusing officer has left the country.
I'm sure there's more. The type of people who clamor for power often do so for the ability to do amoral things.
It's unsuprising theres a mix of nazis and israelis at the helm of America's "self interest" and there's criminals, child molestors, rapists constantly being squeezed out.
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Nothing really to see here. Normal course of business, except maybe that reviewing all 55m systematically is gonna take a while with all the database joins you will have to do across disparate systems.
Sure, f you trust the administration to rely on objective standards rather than making arbitrary and capricious decisions at scale. Looking at social media, I see a lot of people (including GOP county chairs, example below) saying things like 'deport them all, let them reapply for re-entry,' which kinda proves the argument that it was never about illegal immigration in the first place.
https://x.com/BoFrenchTX/status/1958611053119775213
It is worth familiarizing oneself with VISA rules in other countries and how they enforce them, before the automatic outrage.
Let's take The Netherlands as an example to get a feel.
- Pronouncement of undesirability: https://ind.nl/en/pronouncement-of-undesirability
- Entry bans: https://ind.nl/en/entry-ban
If you have ever had to apply for a Schengen Visa to enter the EU, then you will know how strict the EU is (even hotels want to see your passport and record it).
Nobody is saying it should be as easy to immigrate to the US as it is to immigrate to The Netherlands, they are saying that immigrating to the US should be easier than this administration is making it.
> Nobody is saying it should be as easy to immigrate to the US as it is to immigrate to The Netherlands, they are saying that immigrating to the US should be easier than this administration is making it.
Ah, we're not talking about the same thing.
I drew the comparison to The Netherlands' list of reasons for why they would revoke or deny your VISA (which is what the article is about w.r.t. the US), and it is not dissimilar.
I wasn't contrasting ease of immigration between the two countries. It is a mixed bag, but for educated immigrants the it is generally easier to immigrate to The Netherlands than the US (if you are doing so outside the law, I'm going to guess it is much easier "to make it work" in the US than in The Netherlands - both in terms of getting in but also to make a living). There are some notable barriers like you cannot have dual citizenship (the US allows). On the other hand, demand for immigration to the US is much higher, which, together with more arcane and byzantine regulations result in other structural barriers.
It sounds like you're moving goalposts. You started by saying:
> Nothing really to see here. Normal course of business [...]
And now you're shifting your position by saying "well, its more difficult elsewhere so this must be fine".
You shouldn't worry, though - as long as the visa holders support the KKK and not a free Palestine, they can stay.
> Nothing really to see here. Normal course of business [...]
> well, its more difficult elsewhere so this must be fine
I don't see a difference between these. The "more difficult elsewhere" in the supposedly shifted goalposts is the "normal course of business" in the first comment.
How can you not?
Changing our policies to make the process more chaotic is not our normal course of business, nor is it “nothing to see” as it will directly affect people.
I feel that both of those are plainly evident.
Yeah, you're right; I did not understand the context. This is obviously a motte and bailey.
"Nothing to see here" (even referring to the title alone) is the hard to defend position and when that's called out as ridiculous they say that they were just talking about the actually normal things that countries do for immigration, which nobody is going to argue with.
The end goal being for the "nothing to see here" that everybody is looking at to become normal.
> Changing our policies
FWIW, part of my engagement is to try to understand the real risk vs. alarmism (i.e. as reported).
My understanding is that the material change is that there is somewhat more leeway for the government to interpret what it means to be "to be of good moral character".
You should know that when you apply for citizenship, for example, they have for many years asked you about traffic violations, which, theoretically have always been allowable as input in deciding "of good moral character".
Another is whether you have ever supported the Communist Party or been involved in prostitution, and a whole host of other things. Check out page 14 ("General Eligibility and Inadmissability Grounds") on the form: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/i-4...
I have not read the actual policy change, so I don't know whether it has actually changed or whether it is just being more rigorously applied AND/OR targeted (biased) more.
If you can articulate it precisely, that would be nice for all of us here since the article is not sufficiently objective or illuminating.
> If you can articulate it precisely, that would be nice for all of us
Strongly agree - how nice would it be if this administration cared enough to do just that?
In any case, your understanding is severely incorrect; please read the second half of the article. Here are some helpful paragraphs:
>The administration has steadily imposed more restrictions and requirements on visa applicants, including requiring them to submit to in-person interviews. The review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a process focused mainly on students who have been involved in what the government perceives as pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activity.
>Officials say the reviews will include all visa holders’ social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in their home countries, along with any actionable violations of U.S. law committed while they were in the United States.
>The reviews will include new tools for data collection on past, present and future visa applicants, including a complete scouring of social media sites made possible by new requirements introduced earlier this year. Those make it mandatory for privacy switches on cellphones and other electronic devices or apps to be turned off when an applicant appears for a visa interview.
So, looks like we have intentional ambiguity coupled with mass surveillance. Do you not see how that is problematic?
> [...] the article is not sufficiently objective.
Might there be some confusion between objectivity and your own bias? Playing the innocent enlighted centrist about immigration policies this far in to 2025 seems either wildly ignorant or dangerously veiled.
Here are some links from several months ago for understanding and "engagement":
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/03/deporting-in...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-scraps-guidance-limit...
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/06/27/dhs-terminates-haiti-tps...
>The administration has steadily imposed more restrictions and requirements on visa applicants, including requiring them to submit to in-person interviews.
This is NOT new. In most cases, in-person interviews have always been required at a US embassy or consulate abroad. I know this not only from personal experience but you can also double check if you don't believe me: https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://travel.s...
There are certain exceptions:
- interview waivers: certain applications may qualify to skip, e.g. children under 14, adults 80+, some renewing applications
- certain visa categories: diplomats and some official travelers.
That said, US consular officers have always had the discretion to require an interview even if you might otherwise qualify for a waiver.
>Officials say the reviews will include all visa holders’ social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in their home countries, along with any actionable violations of U.S. law committed while they were in the United States.
Do you object to all of these or only some? I can see objecting to social media account review, but surely actionable violations of US law committed while in the US any reasonable person can agree that that can be cause for denying or revoking your VISA. Surely?
You've been intellectually dishonest on so, so many fronts. How unfortunate for us both.
https://www.visalawyerblog.com/trump-administration-limits-i...
That recording is actually unlawful. They can look at it, and compare it with your face, write up the address in their systems, and that should be it. This practice of copying passports/id-cards is malpractice. The (european) issuers actually say so!
It's certainly to be some sort of political litmus test with a quick perusal of social media for anything other than rabid Trump support along with a test for darker tone of skin or country of origin that is out of favor, to bulk up their failure to kick out enough migrants (not coming close to their stated goals of 1000s per day) through the means they have used so far with fake justification, ticky tacky legal and paperwork issues used to justify deportation.
Whether or not the person has ever attended an anti-Israel protest is an objective standard that is not arbitrary. There are lots of bad things to say, but it's not arbitrary or unobjective.
The 'arbitrary and capricious' part (a legal term of art) is in saying things like attending a protest constitute grounds for deportation absent any published rules or guidance to this effect. While statute law gives wide discretion to the Secretary of State and Attorney-General in immigration matters, there's still an obligation for transparency and process, which is why there's a whole infrastructure set up for contestation, appeals and so on. You cannot just start issuing orders of removal based on, say, whether people like waffles.
As a side note, Israel isn't a US state the last time I looked. I doubt that a blanket ban on political expression could survive a first amendment challenge.
> is in saying things like attending a protest constitute grounds for deportation absent any published rules or guidance to this effect.
The law is clear that if you support a terrorist group, your visa application can be denied or your current visa revoked.
If we take Hamas for example, they are designated a terrorist group by: European Union, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Paraguay, United Kingdom, United States, Organization of American States, Switzerland[1]
If you are in the US on a non-immigrant visa (you are a guest) and you go to a rally in support of Hamas, I struggle to understand why it would be controversial that the US can revoke your visa ("your permission to be in the US").
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_g...
> if you support a terrorist group
What does "support" mean in this context?
Commonly, when we talk about "support" for an organization (or a cause) it can mean any of the following:
1) financial (e.g. donations, membership fees, investments)
2) human resources (e.g. volunteers, staffing, training)
3) material & in-kind (e.g. equipment, office space, supplies)
4) knowledge & expertise (e.g advisory, R&D, workshops, training)
5) networking & partnerships (e.g. collaboration, referrals, advocacy alliances)
6) policy & institutional (applies to governments, not individuals, so not relevant "in this context")
7) community & social (e.g. public awareness, volunteer mobilization, cultural legitimacy)
I appreciate the answer. I guess "attending a protest" falls under "public awareness" or "cultural legitimacy" if the protest is specifically about the organization being unpopular or demonized. Sticking with the Gaza situation example, most protests are along the lines of "Israel shouldn't do that" and not "Hamas needs more support". Claiming otherwise seems massively disingenuous; it's obvious that people oppose terrorism and Israel's actions for largely the same reasons.
> Sticking with the Gaza situation example, most protests are along the lines of "Israel shouldn't do that" and not "Hamas needs more support".
Yes, here is the nuance, which I concur with and I would hope most reasonable people could agree on.
In practice, protests are a mix of people but onlookers take a binary stance. It is not going to be difficult to see at protest a poster or cameras capture someone shouting something like "globalize the infitada! or or death to America".
Complicating matters further, protest organizers and the protesters themselves have more of a fluid behavior and motivations - it is not a club where membership is controlled and patrolled, a protest's mission is usually a little vague and fluid, etc.
And that is, I think, where the real risk lies - you are at a protest and you can find yourself surrounded by others who ARE supporting Hamas even if you're not and you get lumped together.
This happens on "the right" as well. You'll have some Neo-Nazi's in a conservative protest against XYZ, and now all of a sudden they're all Nazi's.
It is deeply unfortunate.
> And that is, I think, where the real risk lies - you are at a protest and you can find yourself surrounded by others who ARE supporting Hamas even if you're not and you get lumped together.
This is incredibly dubious. Not only the idea that I would find myself around any number of people explicitly supporting Hamas but also the idea that I would be confused as being part of them. (Like, I can just walk away and tell others that I disagree with the dumb shit they're saying.) People are told not to say dumb shit at the protests I go to; anyone saying something explicitly pro-violence is an obvious agitator.
> This happens on "the right" as well. You'll have some Neo-Nazi's in a conservative protest against XYZ, and now all of a sudden they're all Nazi's.
This is not an equivalent comparison. It's not like there's a grassroots movement of Hamas sympathizers in America that have inspired songs to be written about them. But neo-Nazis... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYKAQZUAbHU
But don't you think it's at least a little bit telling that you automatically jump to neo-Nazis showing up at "conservative protests"? What makes the protest "conservative" and why do you present it as a truism that such an event would appeal to neo-Nazis? One might assume that the neo-Nazis are loudly told to FUCK OFF when they show up... well, anywhere, a "conservative protest" included, but one would also imagine that they'd eventually stop showing up to such events, at least not openly as neo-Nazis. It seems like they keep showing up to them because they are welcome at them.
> This is not an equivalent comparison. It's not like there's a grassroots movement of Hamas sympathizers in America
Counter evidence from, for example, 2024 news report: “Pro-Hamas group that helped organize college protests is a 'sham charity,' Treasury says”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/-hamas-group-helped-org...
An actual rally for Hamas? Or rather deliberate conflation of supporting Palestinians and their right to resist occupiers and genocide in their home country? [0].
Stop bullshitting people here.
0. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/03/deporting-in...
The Taliban sucks shit. I also thought that the war in Afghanistan was a monstrous campaign of death and I publicly said this throughout the war. Should I be punished by the state for "supporting a terrorist group?"
I'm very sorry but advocating for not bombing hospitals in Gaza is not "supporting a terrorist group."
> I'm very sorry but advocating for not bombing hospitals in Gaza is not "supporting a terrorist group."
I don't think we disagree on this.
In practice, protests are a mix of people but onlookers take a binary stance. It is not going to be difficult to see at protest a poster or cameras capture someone shouting something like "globalize the infitada! or or death to America".
Complicating matters further, protest organizers and the protesters themselves have more of a fluid behavior and motivations - it is not a club where membership is controlled and patrolled, a protest's mission is usually a little vague and fluid, etc.
And that is, I think, where the real risk lies - you are at a protest and you can find yourself surrounded by others who ARE supporting Hamas even if you're not and you get lumped together.
This happens on "the right" as well. You'll have some Neo-Nazi's in a conservative protest against XYZ, and now all of a sudden they're all Nazi's.
It is deeply unfortunate.
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> Guess what, friend. If you have neo-Nazi's showing up to your protest and people don't immediately throw them out, you are now at a neo-Nazi event.
Do you apply the same logic when people waving pro Hamas flags or chants show up at an anti-Israel rally?
If you are, you are doing the same thing as the administration! If you do not, why the unequal treatment?
I've literally never seen a pro-Hamas protestor at an anti-Israel rally, but neo-Nazis seem to be at every conservative rally. Why is that? Is it because conservatives support free speech?
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> To most sensible people, that’s an easily recognizable false equivalence. Zionists and their ethically bankrupt apologists disgust me, and those views are not welcome here.
Ouch
How is protesting against the genocide suddenly becomes “supporting a terrorist group”?
Only material support for terror group (fundraising and sending $$$ to people in the OFAC list)
See my reply to sibling about what people generally mean with the word "support".
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> goalposts
I'm sorry you feel that way, but perhaps what I can say is that I'm trying to be hyper-precise about the boundaries (as I see them at least), rather than move them.
I think it is fine to be outraged about:
a) systematic racist (read: selective) application of the law
b) no due process
c) egregious mistakes
d) commanding the military to stampede cities (ok, in reality, it is more show than scary, but the precedent is unacceptable)
What I don't think is valid is arguing that the government should not apply the law as it stands, which empowers the government to revoke or deny visas (or residency application or naturalization application) for reasons enumerated by the State Department: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...
Nobody was making such an argument and you know it.
> attended an anti-Israel protest
The test may not be arbitrary. How the test was chosen is. A CAPTCHA is an objective test; forcing everyone in high school to take one is arbitrary.
(Also, to my knowledge, mere attendance wouldn’t constitute a lawful reason to eject. Material support would have to have been offered, e.g. fundraising for Hamas.
if it is not arbitrary, as you claim, surely it must be encoded in law and history of past precedents, right ?
Israeli people need to read the 1st Amendment that we have in the US
The USA does have a long history of punishing people severely for protesting.
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> it is another thing to punish people protesting a third country israel. > it just signifies who really occupies all positions of power in this country
who is this group of people who occupy all positions of power in this country? men? white men? republicans? billionaires? women? straights?
which group of people have their grabby hands all over the positions of power in this country?
from your suggestive tone, it looks like you already know the answer...
I honestly don't, and don't think there is such a thing. Which is why I'm challenging you to articulate which "group" you think controls the key positions of power...
Matthew 13:9
I don't understand why you're being obscure.
They want to imply "the Jews" without actually coming out and saying "the Jews."
They're going to do a few keyword searches for things "Gaza" and "universal healthcare" and try to mass-deport anyone who used those words on social media. And if no one tries to stop them, then it will happen. Habeas Corpus is gone.
That's probably true.
This is not normal course of business at all. This is probably a wave of capricious decision making to "meet quota" because they are not able to find and catch illegal immigrants to make news.
You say that as if Palantir does not already have all this information ready for AI analysis today.
Or that the NSA doesn't have it all centralized, tagged and sorted.
Which is why the Trump admin will just default to Betar US, repping a foreign entity ethnostate, for their list of visas to revoke.
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