Harvard student barred from U.S. because officials objected to the political views of his social media friends
A Palestinian student from Lebanon who was set to begin his freshman year at Harvard was denied entry to the United States after immigration officials objected to his friends’ social media posts, he said this week, prompting furor among free-speech advocates.
The student, Ismail B. Ajjawi, 17, landed at Logan International Airport in Boston on Friday, and was turned back by a Customs and Border Protection agent, according to an account he gave The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper.
Mr. Ajjawi, a resident of Tyre, Lebanon, said in the account that his phone and laptop were searched and that he was questioned at the airport about his friends’ social media activity. He wrote that an agent had yelled at him and “said she found people posting political points of view that oppose the U.S. on my friend list.”
He told the agent that he should not be held responsible for others’ posts, the statement said.
“I responded that I have no business with such posts and that I didn’t like, share or comment on them and told her that I shouldn’t be held responsible for what others post,” he wrote. [Continue reading…]
Summer Lopez, senior director of Free Expression Programs at PEN America, said:
Preventing people from entering the country because their friends critiqued the U.S. on social media shows an astounding disregard for the principle of free speech. The idea that Ajjawi should be prevented from taking his place at Harvard because of his own political speech would be alarming; that he should be denied this opportunity based on the speech of others is downright lawless.
In June, when the state department announced its new ‘extreme vetting’ policy requiring visa applicants to share their social media and email account information, we warned that it would have severe consequences. This case demonstrates all too well the damage these ill-conceived policies can do. [Continue reading…]