Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU

The incredible stupidity here is that there is no classified research done by that group, nor by my own research group (cryptography). Everything is published in publicly available conferences and journals.

If anything I've been surprised at how consistently keen Americans are for high-skill immigration.

This is not a swipe against Mandela in any way. It's just an example that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and how rigid systems can end up giving you politically inconvenient results.

If you make a blanket rule that people with ties to terrorism cannot enter the country, then you can end up "correctly" denying entry to Nobel Peace Prize winners.

This is the comedy of the whole security theater system. In the old days generals always prepared to refight the last war, in the fatherland security era its about the same concept. The next attack will not come from a properly documented airline passenger, it'll come from "rio grande swimmer number 50 million and one".

May as well just let them fly even if we know they're bad guys, if they're going to get here anyway, one way or another, at least we'll make a profit off the ticket and its easier to track their actions at an airport than some desert out west.

Even worse, they're better off letting all the bad guys thru to boost budgets, and stop only good guys because its safer/less confrontational and makes good theater. If I know that, they probably figured it out a long time earlier, and almost surely implemented it.

Its also a bad tactical move. Lets say he was in fact a bad guy. The obvious standing order for a bad guy would be if you get caught, yet are not drone attacked or sent to the concentration camp in cuba, then being busted should be the immediate signal to enter our completely porous and open borders via non-traditional routes, and "do your thing" since you're obviously of no further use undercover. The mere fact this dude did nothing for over a year using this logic proves his innocence. If he was a bad guy then he would have "sneaked" in, gotten on campus as quickly as possible while his intel is still current, and (done something tragic)

This whole narrative that there is a prevalent terrorist threat against our western countries is both a product of irrational fear and general government megalomania. I'm not even sure there's malevolence behind it.

Osama Bin Laden really won the very first time the terms "War on terror" were pronounced - I don't think he could ever have dreamed of such a wide and lasting success

It's not really that great security practice if you're missing a ton of real terrorists who don't do X, and you're catching a lot of non-terrorists who do do X, and no one can figure out what's going on since no one knows what X is. That's not protecting our methods; at that point, it's really just picking people out randomly.

It's either a false positive (that's most likely, considering how few terrorists there actually are), or a subtle hint to discourage his associates from ... doing things.

What terrorists? Good security practice is making a system that is usable, because otherwise the best practice would be to seal the boarder completely.

edit: this is obviously false, since by taking the monopole of violence, the government also has to drop some barbaric practices. And this is all due process and defense rights are about, limitations of the government power. Call it unfair, but drones are unfair too.

There is zero evidence to link Omar's case with PRISM- especially as the events described started over a year and a half ago. I am not "assuming" that it is unrelated, I am making a decision based on the fact that there is no evidence linking the two. When such evidence arises, I'll re-examine my opinion. But assuming that everything is related to PRISM because it involves computers and/or the government is a slippery slope into tin foil hatted-ness.

The rules basically say that embassy official should only give out student visas if they are confident that the student meets the terms of the visa, particularly that they have no intent to overstay or permanently immigrate to the U.S. I.e. the default is not granting the visa, rather than granting the visa.

The rules are bizarre: while you're on a non-immigrant visa you have to prove that you have no intent to immigrate or seek immigrant status, yet ultimately many people will seek green cards. Indeed, there is plenty of talk that the U.S. should actively seek to encourage international students to stay permanently, while at the same time the rules say that visas shouldn't be granted to international students who might possibly be considering staying permanently.

I share your caution, because I remember that for better or worse this is how reddit started changing back in the day (late 2007 - 2008), by focusing on politics (and then there came the memes and all that). But, one can sort of feel that all this is way more technology- and consequently HN-related than what Obama or Hillary Clinton had to say back in the day.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That US immigration is f'cked up is not exactly new or interesting in any case - and certainly not "intellectually gratifying". Do you remember when Linus Torvalds had bureaucratic problems with his green card?

People are trying so hard to find tangible evidence of someone doing something with info the NSA has collected that they are latching on to anything that could be construed as such if you look at it believing you found that evidence.

Because they are? Approximately zero risk, true, but slightly over zero. Its a pretty simple straightforward game theory problem. Whats the total aggregate sum of the trouble you'll get into by letting 1 out of 100 million terrorist thru, vs simply stamping "denied national security" on any random visa and stonewalling? In fact the guy who dared complain about it is probably now on some secret NSA list, and perhaps also now on the no-fly list. That'll show people what happens to complainers, hopefully that prof never has to fly anywhere again for the rest of his life... and probably his families lives, too.

Note, I'm not supporting an unjust system, just explaining how it works from a game theory perspective. I don't see why any individual inspector would ever permit a visa unless there's some kind of piecework payment system or a really good non-retribution system (anonymity?). If a terrorist ever got past them, there would be demands for punishment. Therefore "the system" is going to select for inspectors who are either reckless, careless, actively working against the interests of the USA... None of which will probably have ideal outcomes.

I've never heard of student visa problems caused by getting married to a non-American, which seems to be what happened in the case discussed in the OP.

My cursory reading of the USCIS website tells me her fiance would need to apply for a K1,K3 visa. Being married she is entitled to rights the typical J visa holder does not have.

This is where the immigrant/nonimmigrant visa process breaks down. USCIS makes it painfully expensive to change a nonimmigrant visa into an immigrant visa. I guess what they want to avoid is having people jump the greencard queue, and marriage moves you right to the top, by flying in on a tourist visa, find a willing US citizen to marry.

Solution: Enter on fiance visa or a Green Card.

Should the US treat visitors with respect and make the process of entering and leaving predictable and transparent? Yes. But saying foreigners have due process rights goes beyond should into must. And that is incompatible with our traditional views of sovereignty.

The effects might take a while to be felt. Some green card categories have a backlog of more than a decade. Tourism might be easier to measure.

In other words: Fuck You, Got Mine.

It IS quite wasteful that he was given this opportunity, and then thrown out before he even had the chance to complete his education. Absent any real reasoning (which we're likely to never see) it's tremendously irresponsible.