Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Shev Dalal-Dheini: My pleasure.
Dalal-Dheini: There’s very limited information that is out there and on what is supporting that determination that she supported Hamas activities. All we know is that she was one of four co-authors of an opinion piece in the university’s own newsletter calling for the university officials to support resolutions of the student body to recognize that there’s a genocide happening in Palestine and also to divest from businesses that support Israel. So that is all the information that is currently available: that she was one of four authors of this editorial piece. We don’t have additional information about other involvement that she has. She’s a Turkish citizen on a student visa who has continued to comply with her status.
Dalal-Dheini: Yes, sounds like the First Amendment to me as well. And I think that that’s what is really important here. We may not agree with what folks say—whether you’re a U.S. citizen or you’re a noncitizen, we don’t always have to agree with what our opinions are but our Constitution protects us all equally. Our Constitution has the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court has held its precedent for over decades that it applies to U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike. And I think that’s what’s crucial. It’s not about what was stated in the op-ed or what her beliefs may be, but it’s a question of whether or not someone is being detained and possibly deported because of their exercise of their First Amendment rights.
Dalal-Dheini: Yeah. We don’t know much. Again, we don’t have the evidence. The government hasn’t come out with allegations other than saying that they are in some way associated with Hamas. It seems like it’s more about their political statements, their participation in protest activity, or even their written opinions, which is similar to what happened with Ms. Ozturk. Overall, what we can discern from the facts is that these are all similar cases. These are all related. They’re all being targeted for their political beliefs. And beyond that, we don’t have any other evidence of what nefarious activity they may have been participating in.
Dalal-Dheini: Yeah, this is a really arcane foreign policy provision that has not been used frequently or has very rarely been used by the government. It’s about when the secretary of state has reasonable grounds to believe that someone’s presence, a noncitizen’s presence, would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences to the U.S.; that would then make them deportable. But I would have to reiterate: [having] reasonable grounds to believe is the first piece of it. The second piece is that they have serious adverse foreign policy consequences. I’m not sure how a college student protesting impacts our foreign policy, and that also has not been articulated by the secretary of state or the U.S. government.
Marco Rubio (audio voiceover): We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.
Rubio (audio voiceover): Sure. I mean, at some point I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them.
Dalal-Dheini: When we’re talking about the authority, the statutes do give the secretary of state authority to revoke a nonimmigrant visa. But it’s usually based on receipt of derogatory information such as an arrest, or they’re looking at somebody who didn’t meet the requirement of admission at the time the visa was given, or where there’s, again, derogatory information provided by another U.S. government agency. At this point, we don’t have any of that information. We have no evidence that they have failed to maintain their status, that they were not entitled to their visas when they were given their visas. The only derogatory information that is available is that people were expressing their political opinions or their right to speech, and that is what’s being punished currently by the secretary of state.
Dalal-Dheini: Yeah. So it’s interesting. When this provision, this foreign policy ground was created by Congress, they expressly included a safe harbor provision that explicitly prevented the removal of someone because of their past, current, or expected beliefs that would otherwise be lawful in the U.S. So if a U.S. citizen said that, if that was a legal action, then it would be legal and they should be protected from removal if they’re a noncitizen. The only way the secretary of state can overcome that safe harbor exception is that if they personally determine that the person’s presence would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest. And we don’t know, again, what that compelling U.S. foreign policy interest [compromise is].
Sargent: We certainly don’t. And I think what the administration will try to say, and they have kind of said it, is that the administration’s foreign policy goal here is to combat antisemitism. But it’s also vague. I wonder whether this stuff is legally vulnerable on vagueness grounds. Rubio is just basically saying these people constitute a serious threat to U.S. foreign policy and not much more than that. Maybe the statute itself is vulnerable, but all this seems very vulnerable to legal challenges, right? How do you see this unfolding?
Sargent: Just to be clear, when you say it was found unconstitutional by a federal court, what happened after that?
Sargent: Shev, just to wrap this up, it really looks like Rubio is emerging as a central figure in Donald Trump’s deportation regime. I think this is striking. Rubio, a decade ago, was really a heroic figure in the immigration debate in a certain respect. He stuck his neck out and very bravely argued for humane immigration reform, and even spoke out powerfully about the humanity of migrants. But now he’s emerging as central to some of the most questionable deportations that Donald Trump is doing. What do you think of that?
Sargent: We really need Rubio to say more clearly what the grounds for doing these things really is.
Sargent: Certainly not. We really are hoping for better from Secretary Rubio. Shev Dalal-Dheini, thank you so much for coming on with us. We really appreciate it.
Sargent: You’ve been listening to The Daily Blast with me, your host, Greg Sargent. The Daily Blast is a New Republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler and the DSR Network.
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