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Comment by pyrale | Hacker News Reader

To condone what happens to him, you must first condone that your government lists and identifies people attending opponent meetings.

Whether the government waits for him to leave the country to violate his rights feels like a small detail in this issue.

Also, if you intend to claim that us foreigners are free targets for any abhorent behaviour of your government, maybe you should rename your bill of rights a bill of privileges.

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It has nothing to do with condoning. It has everything to do with stating what the law is And what is or is what is not required to comply. And what is and what is not permitted under the Constitution. Whether you like it or not has nothing to do with anything.

Whoa! I’d slow down with the hypotheses, considering we have one side of the story.

What we do know is that the US, like all other countries, has wide legal latitude on not allowing foreigners into the country. You can be denied entry for no more than a Facebook like of the wrong post.

The EFF letter tends to line up with this guy’s story, though.

Also, since google complied without giving him the ability to challenge the request, we will never have another version. In that context, it feels fair to accept the only version we have.

The events he was likely targeted for happened on a campus in the US.

The policy of applying US immigration enforcement actions against legal visa holders who have attended specific legal (US based) protests has been publicly reported and confirmed by many government officials and is unrelated to anyone trying to enter the country.

Senior ICE officials have testified under oath in federal court that analysts were moved from counterterrorism, global trade, and cybercrime work to this group focused specifically on writing reports about people involved in student protests.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/politics/ice-homeland-securit...

https://time.com/7272060/international-students-targeted-tru...

https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/07/10/ice-lawsuit-deportation...

Yes? Why would a government allow people who aren't citizens to come in and protest on its soil about its actions? I think that's the definition of forgein interference.

> Yes? Why would a government allow people who aren't citizens to come in and protest on its soil about its actions?

Because the definition of what a "protest" is is very arbitrary and can be defined to suit your political agenda.

In the US, the bill of rights and specifically the first amendment unambiguously applies to anyone who is lawfully present in the country, citizen or not.

Yes, and this person had left the US, needed permission to reenter, and thus the Secretary of State had the power to deny entry because it "wasn't in the interest of the country".

A parent post said:

> The policy of applying US immigration enforcement actions against legal visa holders who have attended specific legal (US based) protests has been publicly reported and confirmed by many government officials and is unrelated to anyone trying to enter the country.

So in this context, the GP asked “Why would a government allow people who aren't citizens to come in and protest on its soil about its actions?” and that was the question I’m answering. The answer is: because preventing someone who is already in the country lawfully from protesting violates the constitution.

? hypotheses?

The previous comment makes it clear that this situation cannot be operationalized without having lists of people who attended events.

Now sure how you comment a continuation of the conversation?

Very big of you to hold off on judgement until judgement is irrelevant and you have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

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