In his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump pledged “to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.”
It was a shallow pledge.
That much is made clear by the Trump administration’s escalating crackdown on U.S. visa holders who have criticized Israel, expressed support for Palestinian causes, or both. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week suggested that he had canceled “maybe more than 300” visas belonging to what he described as “lunatics.” Also this week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Department of Homeland Security agents detained Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University.
As with recent similar detentions, DHS says Ozturk was targeted because she supports Hamas. Unfortunately, as in prior cases, DHS has provided no evidence to support that assertion. Instead, Otzurk appears to have been detained because of her role in writing an op-ed criticizing Tufts leadership on their stance regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
My view and, I suspect, the view of many conservatives is that anti-Israeli sentiments are generally idiotic from both moral and political perspectives. And anyone who has any knowledge of Palestinian Islamist movements would know that they are anything but liberation movements. Still, Ozturk’s seizure is deeply concerning. As is the video of Ozturk’s detention by masked federal agents. It shows an ambush detention by numerous masked federal agents. That a person is being detained simply because of their free speech makes it seem like the arrest is occurring at the hands of FSB agents in Russia, not DHS agents in America.
If there is evidence of Ozturk’s support for Hamas, the State Department should make it public. If there is evidence that Ozturk took over campus buildings or harassed Jewish students, it should be case closed, sayonara. But it should also go without saying that writing an op-ed should not, alone, be a cause for visa revocation. And that appears to be the case here. In turn, Otzurk is now being treated little differently in America to how her fellow citizens are treated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan back home.
That’s a problem because America is not supposed to be a place where people are targeted for coercive government action simply for the content of their lawful speech. The concern for the slippery slope here should also be apparent. If we’re detaining foreigners for their anti-Israel speech on campus, why not also ban anti-Israeli news outlets such as Al Jazeera? Why not use immigration forms to include a question on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
The why not should be obvious: because this country is supposed to value vigorous debate more than it fears unpleasant commentary. The First Amendment tradition rightly assumes that maximal speech is beneficial in fostering more expansive debate on matters of public import. And while the First Amendment does not protect foreigners to the same degree it protects citizens, do we not expect that the Trump administration’s campus crackdown will deter the public from adopting similar public stances to that of Ozturk and the others who have been detained? Do we not think this will chill debate on campus? Shouldn’t it concern us that this seems to be the Trump administration’s motive?
Nor is it true, as some commentators claim, that expressions of even vicious anti-Israeli sentiment constitute material support for terrorism. Such speech might be repellant and delusional of Israel’s standing as the only true democracy in the Middle East. But the Supreme Court has ruled that material support for terrorism requires specific services pursuant to speech that is “under the direction of, or in coordination with foreign groups that the speaker knows to be terrorist organizations.”
The Supreme Court’s caution recognizes the Founders’ intent in the First Amendment. As Chief Justice John Roberts explained in the case of Snyder v. Phelps, “As a nation we have chosen a different course — to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.” Preserving this expansive notion of free speech is especially important today in light of the growing speech crackdown by European democracies. Indeed, the Trump administration’s speech crackdown is incompatible with Vice President JD Vance’s otherwise righteous condemnation of European speech authoritarianism. That European authoritarianism is very real.
Yes, Rubio has significant authority to expel any visa holder for a wide range of reasons. Yes, hatred toward Israel antagonizes many Americans. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist group whose charter calls for searching out and massacring Jews for the simple reason of their Judaism. Yes, the scourge of rising antisemitism is a major concern — especially for Jewish Americans.
Still, it should concern all Americans that visitors to our country are being expelled on the primary and, it seems, the sole basis of their lawful speech. This action undermines America’s hard-won reputation as the home of the free. It also disregards the central philosophical underpinning of the First Amendment: the idea that more speech ultimately leads to more human and social benefits.
This situation also underlines a striking hypocrisy on the right.
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After all, many conservatives who have spent the last few years righteously lamenting leftist censorship efforts are now saluting or staying silent in response to Trump’s speech crackdown. Seeking to defeat otherwise repellant arguments, they should remember Thomas Jefferson’s advice:
“Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.”