CIVIL LIBERTIES
Mounting evidence supports the conclusion that the government is using the visa process to bar scholars from the country simply because they may be critical of United States policy. The immigration service and the Department of State are putting themselves in the business of determining what ideas Americans should hear.
Last week the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records on the use of the USA Patriot Act to deny prominent foreign scholars entry to the United States. At the same time, commentator Joanne Mariner wrote in the legal information Web site Findlaw that the government is “playing politics with visas.”
Unfortunately, this is not new in American history. As Mariner points out, “The list of foreign writers, artists and intellectuals who, at one time or another, have been denied entry to the United States on ideological grounds is a long one.” In the l960s and ‘70s the government barred anyone associated with the Communist Party, and even those who were merely sympathetic to socialist ideals. We did not want to contaminate our universities with anti-capitalist criticism.
But in the l980s and ‘90s, the government adopted a “free trade in ideas” campaign that put an end to using visas to bar scholars because of their views. With the new immigration policy, foreign visitors could be barred only because of dangerous acts, not “dangerous” ideas.
Now we have an administration that can abide no criticism, even from citizens – one that not only manages the news but also creates and publishes its own version of events and passes it off as “news.” Under such a mindset, foreigners who disagree with our policies must be denied entry.
The ACLU request focuses on the use of Section 411 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to exclude foreign scholars if, in the government’s view, they have “used [their] position of prominence to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or to persuade others to support terrorist activity.” The request seeks the names, nationalities and professions of those who have been excluded
The request has been made because the government is going well beyond this provision to bar anyone whose political views it dislikes. Both the ACLU and Joanne Mariner cite the recent cases of Dora Maria Tellez and Tariq Ramadan, both of whom had been offered academic positions at prestigious US universities (Tellez at Harvard and Ramadan at Notre Dame).
Tellez was a leader in the l979 movement to overthrow Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza; she also served as a democratically elected minister of health in the new government. Because our government views the democratic overthrow of a dictator we supported for many years as terrorist actions, Tellez can be labeled as someone who “endorsed or espoused terrorist activity.”
The Patriot Act has given the government such broad leeway that, as constitutional scholar David Cole has written, anyone “who offered his services in peace negotiating to the IRA in the hope of furthering the peace process in Great Britain could be deported as a terrorist. So could anyone who provided support to the South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance or the Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein.”
Taric Ramadan is known as Europe’s leading Muslim intellectual who has produced 20 books, hundreds of articles and scores of lectures that are popular among immigrant communities. Notre Dame President Edward Malloy expressed bafflement over Ramadan’s visa denial: “We have no reason to think that he’s a mole or an underground instigator. He seems to be an above ground, forthright advocate of what some refer to as moderate Islam and we see him as a really good fit for our peace institute.”
Last October, a group of 61 Cuban scholars was denied entry to the Latin American Studies Association’s international congress in Las Vegas. The Bush administration deemed the scholars’ entry as “detrimental to the interests of the U.S.” The group included poets, sociologists, art historians and economists, many of whom have frequently traveled and lectured in our country.
We know of others who have been excluded, but we need to know all the names and the reasons the government considers such individuals a threat to our universities.
It seems only logical that, at a time when the administration is asking that sections of the Patriot Act be extended, the public learns how the act has been thus far used – or abused. Academic freedom depends on the right of our universities to have different ideas taught; students need to hear critical ideas if they are to learn how to think for themselves.
Playing politics with visas is bad policy.
