Most scientists are rational people. If they obey US immigration rules, they SHOULD never have a problem. There have recently been a few horrifying stories where this wasn't the case, but those are the exception and not the rule.
> A rational person would totally be fine with a non-zero chance of being sent to an El Salvadorean torture camp for the rest of their lives with no due process even when directly ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States... the chance of it happening to you is probably pretty low (though of course we actually don't have a good way to know since people are being whisked away without even chances to contact their lawyers)!
It's crazy how common the meme of "aloofness signals intelligence" has become among the folks at the top of the bell curve.
> There have recently been a few horrifying stories where this wasn't the case, but those are the exception and not the rule.
You made a political statement here that might not be flamebait but is just as careless of reality as flamebait: not only because it ignores the number of people affected in each story (in the worst case, 50 people who literally followed the legal immigration process and still got "deported" to prisons in a different country than the one they came from [1]), but because your idea of "a few" is not mutually exclusive to someone else's idea of "too many". Your "SHOULD never have a problem" is a motte to the `most likely won't have a problem` bailey.
The thing is, while the chances of any one individual having trouble are relatively low (unless they're trans, in which case they may simply not have the papers that the US is now demanding), the chances of them having this sort of trouble (arbitrary detention etc) in a normal country is far, far lower.
Also, these things are organised in advance, often years in advance. Honestly, who knows what it'll look like a couple years down the line.
I think the point was that, if there is a problem, you don't currently have a guarantee of even a minimal due process, as a foreigner at the US border.
You don't have a guarantee of due process even as a citizen in your own home. Multiple citizens have already been deported. If you don't even have to prove in court that someone is in the country illegally before deporting them then no one is safe.
I follow quite a bit of news on this from very anti-Trump, pro-immigration outlets and have not heard of actual citizens being deported yet, only legal permanent residents. Do you have any source, per chance?
Not that I would be surprised - given the lack of due process, it's easy to miss the fact that someone is actually a citizen. And of course, Trump has signed the unconstitutional executive order mandating that ICE should treat citizens that acquired their citizenship by jus soli be treated as non-citizens (if they were born on US soil to non-citizen parents) - so he clearly intends to deport some citizens.
What you should be asking is; what would happen if I illegally immigrated to some country other than the US, where they have no guarantee of due process?
I’m confused by what point you’re trying to make because it isn’t relevant to the article.
It is possible to address illegal immigration in a manner that doesn’t deter those visiting who will very likely return. Unfortunately whether it is the result of agency-wide policy changes or a few rogue officers, there’s certainly some new anxiety up for those wanting to travel here.
What exactly is deterring visitors, other than their dislike for the immigration enforcement policy of the new US administration? From what I've been seeing, legal immigration and tourism are being strongly encouraged.
The fact that legal immigrants have been detained, prevented from attending the birth of their children or from holding their newborn, because they engaged in 1st Amendment protected speech?
Or that when people's visas are unilaterally cancelled for no reason and then they show up at the border for entry, they may be held in solitary confinement for 9 days and given several mutually-exclusive (and all factually incorrect) rationale's for the cancellation while being prevented from contacting their family or lawyers?
> So basically, when we passed the Border Control they separated us and asked me to come with them to a room where they were going to ask me a couple of questions. After that they said my visa has been cancelled and I can’t get in the US this time. I got to another room where I had an interview and they took my fingerprints and photos of my face. And then they brought me “downstairs” until I [could] get my flight back to Germany. “Downstairs” was the cell where I was in solitary confinement for nine days. It took me some days to understand that it wasn’t that easy to get my ticket back, as there was no cooperation in helping me or letting me call someone who could get the ticket for me. You don’t have access to your phone or the internet in that cell.
I am very curious: have you just not heard of these instances? Or you have and you think they are not serious deterrents to legitimate travel to the US?
You've left out a lot of important facts. BTW, my wife is a legal immigrant, and I helped her mother become one too.
A legal immigrant is not yet a citizen, and they must petition the government for citizenship, a process that takes about five years from my personal experience. Up until the immigrant becomes a citizen, their petition can be revoked for any number of reasons, such as criminal activity. If the petition is revoked and they stay, they're still a "legal immigrant" by your definition I guess, because they originally immigrated legally.
Also, MANY countries have denied or cancelled visas over "free speech" from the applicant.
> If the petition is revoked and they stay, they're still a "legal immigrant" by your definition I guess, because they originally immigrated legally.
Uh no. If the petition is revoked then they are obviously here illegally, the question is whether the revocation itself is legal.
> their petition can be revoked for any number of reasons, such as criminal activity.
Correct, their petition can be revoked for any number of reasons, including criminal activity. One thing it can't be revoked for is engaging in protected speech under the First Amendment.
> Also, MANY countries have denied or cancelled visas over "free speech" from the applicant.
Why are you putting "free speech" in scare quotes? Ah! It's to make your absolutely irrelevant point. I'm not talking about what "countries" can do or have done. I'm talking about the United States of America and its Constitutional First Amendment protection. The United States government is forbidden from doing this. I don't give a fuck what other less free commie loser countries do, I care what my country does.
Mahmoud Khalil has a green card (meaning he is a permanent resident) and has been in ICE detention since March 8th. How can you pretend this is about violating immigration law?
The simplest explanation is that they perceive “violating immigration law” and “saying something publicly that the current administration disapproves of” as being the same thing and are completely comfortable with that.
> If they obey US immigration rules, they SHOULD never have a problem.
Sure, they SHOULD never have a problem. But, increasingly under Trump, they MIGHT have a problem despite this, especially if they are not white and/or come from a country that Trump is currently feuding with, and/or have publicly spoken out against Trump, Netanyahu, or their allies. One shouldn't base any serious decision on how things SHOULD be.
Most scientists are rational people. If they obey US immigration rules, they SHOULD never have a problem. There have recently been a few horrifying stories where this wasn't the case, but those are the exception and not the rule.