The Department of Homeland Security announced last week that foreign visitors seeking entry through the United States’s visa waiver program Electronic System for Travel Authorization should be required to provide their social media details from the last five years, as well as other online-based information, such as email addresses used in the past decade and the personal information of immediate family members.
Citizens of 42 countries use ESTA to enter the U.S. for up to 90 days, whether for business or tourism, without having to navigate the time-consuming and expensive visa application process with a U.S. Embassy or Consulate. In short, ESTA exists both to streamline the travel of citizens from (what used to be seen as) safer countries while providing some basic levels of security.
The problem? These safe countries are now full of people who are not exactly safe. I’m talking about the United Kingdom, Germany, and France as obvious examples of Western countries that have become hotbeds of Islamist radicalism.
Now, criticism of this announcement, even if we ignore the reflex outrage that follows quite literally every Trump administration proposal, is rooted in the ridiculous idea that foreigners have a right to visit the U.S. under our Constitution. One critic accused President Donald Trump of “actively trying to kill the tourist industry,” as if such a proposal flies in the face of this being “the land of the free.” Then the Guardian reported on others who are screaming about free speech, accusing Trump of being no different than China by “shredding civil liberties” and enforcing “censorship pure and simple.”
According to Amnesty International UK, the plan is “wildly out of proportion to any legitimate border need” and it “shows how ‘slippery slopes’ on human rights suddenly become cliffs.” Oh, well, if Amnesty International UK says so …
First off, surely we all agree that social media is the primary method of communication and self-expression in our modern world. Given that international borders have become as permeable as Swiss cheese, the fact that someone can hold a British passport, German passport, or French passport means nothing. For all we know, someone arrived from Afghanistan, Iraq, or Somalia yesterday and has spent the last five years declaring his love for jihad on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Is that not an important detail for his possible hosts to uncover?
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But secondly, notice the inherent elitism and arrogance of the notion that foreigners have a right to travel to any country they wish without facing even the mildest inconvenience. Just because you are allowed to float to England on an inflatable flamingo and immediately demand that the country you despise provide you with free housing, education, and healthcare while embracing the same Islamism you supposedly fled does not mean we have to follow suit.
As usual in the field of fighting illegal immigration and addressing the national security threats that lie within, Trump and his administration are totally correct. And, frankly, the fewer European soccer fans that come here next summer, the better.
Ian Haworth is a syndicated columnist. Follow him on X (@ighaworth)or Substack.