I never thought screening visa applicants for threats to national security would be so controversial.
Posting social media comments protesting the actions of Israel is not a national security threat but is something we've seen this administration invoke penalties for.
The hatred, bigotry, and raw short sightedness are horrifying. To the degree that America is "great" it is great because it was a place where great people from around the world wanted to come to and wanted to live in. Turning away students - the most likely source of new scientific and artistic greatness in the future - is throwing away any leadership we had and actively harming the country.
It is in fact harming national security if these brilliant minds study, live, and work in other countries.
Turning away troublemakers is a smart thing to do. There are more than enough talented people waiting in line. People who will not shout down professors, occupy university buildings and protest against the government of the country that received them as guests.
Challenging authority is a requirement of progress - if you can't criticize the system how can you dream of improving it?
It leaves me with a lot of questions.
What even constitutes a social media profile? For how long do you have to mark it public? What if marking all your social media profiles public exposes you to harm? Is it acceptable to delete all your posts (that were previously _private_) before making a profile public, or to delete whole profiles, or would that desire for privacy be seen as concealing some threat? How is it known if there are non-public profiles? Would govt believe somebody who has no social media presence at all?
"screening visa applicants for threats" is a very simplistic summary of the situation. I think visa applicants are just gonna go eleswhere.
here's the article: https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj.
School shootings are not typically classified as "terrorism" unless they are explicitly motivated by political, ideological or religious agendas.
Foreign-sponsored terrorist attacks, such as 9/11, San Bernardino shooting, Pulse nightclub shooting, etc result in significantly higher casualties, widespread fear and greater economic impact (in the $trillions). Foreign actors are typically more sophisticated, thus calling for enhanced screening. And their actions have further-reaching consequences such as the cost of wars and homeland security measures.
"To apply for a visa, applicants need to give us (and the rest of the world) access to all email correspondence."
No one is complaining about screening for threats. It's how that's a problem.
They also don't say "Hey, this phone you gave me doesn't have any photos. You must have backed them up elsewhere and are hiding them from me. I'm denying entry."
In other words, they don't say "Hey, bring all the photos you ever took."
And, we must acknowledge the obvious: such authoritarian rules and requirements rely on benevolence. Meaning, if your leader and border agents are good people, then this isn't a problem.
Well... are they? I say no, so now this is a problem that didn't exist previously.