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The First Amendment applies to everyone on US soil, not just citizens. That’s settled law. The government can revoke visas for legitimate immigration violations, but it’s not allowed to use immigration machinery as a pretext to punish political expression. That’s exactly what they are doing. It looks like the courts will eventually put an end to this [0] but it won’t reverse the damage that’s already been done.

I’m generally receptive to point the finger at Google’s intentions but in their defense, administrative subpoenas frequently include non disclosure orders. Google’s own transparency policies have always carved out (industry standard) exceptions for cases where they’re legally prohibited from notifying.

[0] https://evrimagaci.org/gpt/judge-rebukes-trump-over-student-...

11 comments

Technically incorrect, Supreme Court precedent has held that aliens are entitled to lesser First Amendment protections while seeking to enter the United States. You could be on US Soil (i.e. entering customs at an airport) and those protections don't apply.

The person in question said he was in Geneva when he received the email from Google. Therefore is a non-US citizen residing outside the country entitled to 1A protections for something they said or did while in the US? I'm not expressing an opinion but I wouldn't take that statement as legal advice.

To condone what happens to him, you must first condone that your government lists and identifies people attending opponent meetings.

Whether the government waits for him to leave the country to violate his rights feels like a small detail in this issue.

Also, if you intend to claim that us foreigners are free targets for any abhorent behaviour of your government, maybe you should rename your bill of rights a bill of privileges.

It has nothing to do with condoning. It has everything to do with stating what the law is And what is or is what is not required to comply. And what is and what is not permitted under the Constitution. Whether you like it or not has nothing to do with anything.

Whoa! I’d slow down with the hypotheses, considering we have one side of the story.

What we do know is that the US, like all other countries, has wide legal latitude on not allowing foreigners into the country. You can be denied entry for no more than a Facebook like of the wrong post.

Yes, someone in customs at an airport can be treated as functionally “at the border” with reduced protections.

But you are conflating seeking entry with being present inside the country. That’s the legal line, and the Supreme Court has stated it clearly. “once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause applies to all ‘persons’ within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.” [0]

As for the First Amendment specifically the Supreme court has reversed the deportation order of an Australian labor activist due to alleged Communist Party affiliation, concluding that “freedom of speech and of the press is accorded aliens residing in this country” [1]

The Geneva detail doesn’t apply. He was on US soil as a lawful visa holder when he attended the protest. It’s a question of where he was when the government action targeted his protected expression not where he was when Google emailed him.

His departure doesn’t retroactively strip the constitutional protections that applied when the conduct occurred.

[0] https://law.onecle.com/ussc/533/533us693.html

[1] Bridges v. Wixon https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/aliens/

> Yes, someone in customs at an airport can be treated as functionally “at the border” with reduced protections. But you are conflating seeking entry with being present inside the country. That’s the legal line, and the Supreme Court has stated it clearly.

At least in terms of being "at the border", United States v. Martinez-Fuerte would appear to disagree.

That legal line you mention is both figuratively and literally not at the border; protections are weakened up to 100 miles away.

If only the US would follow its laws or constitution

'Technically incorrect' on a matter of U.S. constitutionality, says the poster talking about capital-'s' soil. Right.

> ... it’s not allowed to use immigration machinery as a pretext to punish political expression. That’s exactly what they are doing.

I agree: this is exactly what the administration is doing.

> I’m generally receptive to point the finger at Google’s intentions but in their defense, administrative subpoenas frequently include non disclosure orders.

Except immigration aren't allowed to put gag orders on administrative subpoenas [1]:

> First, any gag order in these subpoenas has no legal effect; you are free to publicize them and inform the target of the subpoena.

and

> The agency’s administrative subpoena power is limited, but ICE often uses the subpoenas to obtain more assistance than is legally required

This is the key problem. Companies like Google aren't making government agencies go to court to get a subpoena, they're not resisting that subpoena, they're not informing targets when they're legally allowed to and they're giving agencies more assistance than is legally required.

I don't think it's asking a lot to expect any platform to only provide the minimum legally required cooperation.

[1]: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites...

> as a pretext to punish political expression

I sincerely don't understand why deportation is called a punishment in this discussion.

As in any country in the world, US immigration law operates on the principle that a foreigner is granted a PRIVILEGE to be in the US. Or this privilege is denied with no reason whatsoever. Just because it is a PRIVILEGE.

When someone is deported for participating in protests, they are still literally in a better position than the BILLIONS of people who want to be in the US but who are denied this privilege without any justification.

Why do we think this man was punished by the United States, at the same time thing that the BILLIONS of people the US arbitrarily bans from being in its territory were not punished? Compared to those billions, he rather have been granted the privilege of being on US territory (for a while).

Even assuming your incorrect framing of immigration as a privilege (You may as well say parents give their kids the privilege of going to play with their friends so grounding is not a punishment) consider the following.

It would be a privilege for me to give you a parachute for free. If you jump out of a plane with that privileged parachute, then it turns out to be a backpack with a sheet in it, what are your thoughts? Now you may not necessarily feel the word punishment fits in me giving you a backpack instead of a parachute, but you do see that I'd be the one in the wrong in that situation and that you are considerably worse off than before? I could wax lyrical about how thousands of people are in the air above the ground every day while jumping about, it doesn't change the fact that your position 3000ft in the air is a lot worse than those 2ft of the ground if you don't have the privilege of a free parachute you thought you had.

> I don't think it's asking a lot to expect any platform to only provide the minimum legally required cooperation.

It is asking a lot. They can do minimum legally required things for environment, users, communities, charities and so on. This would be considered very hostile behavior. And companies don't do that.

So why would they be doing minimum required cooperation with government just because some people do not like government or its actions.

> administrative subpoenas frequently include non disclosure orders

Which Google definitely knows are not enforceable.

When you're a huge company trying to do business in the US (or any country, for that matter) you have to think very, very carefully before you make an enemy of the government. Google could refuse to go along with this stuff and find itself the subject of a big, expensive anti-trust probe.

Or more simply, a target of a temper tantrum that suddenly declares them a national risk and orders everyone in the government to stop doing business with them.

I think it could easily be argued that the reverse is true. Even Donald Trump would think twice about taking on Google. He might bluster about them on Truth Social, sure, but America is a corporatocracy and I'd put my money on Google.

Yes, I know there are examples where he is trying to screw with big corps like Anthropic. But Anthropic is not Google.

> It looks like the courts will eventually put an end to this

If that is to happen, who would enforce the rulings? The DOJ is not neutral and will likely abide to the wishes of the Administration

Ultimately, Congress.

But the odds of getting the majority vote in the Republican-controlled House and 2/3 majority vote in the Republican-controlled Senate required to remove Trump from office are unlikely to be any better.

At least not until Republican primary voters start voting out pro-Trump Republicans in favor of candidates who don't pledge unwavering loyalty to a President who openly opposes institutions they (the voters) hold dear, like the free market, say, or the Pope.

Or just bite the bullet and vote for a Democrat they may agree with less, but trust more.

I wouldn’t say “would likely abide”, I would say “will abide” based on their actions. They are nothing but an extension of the Trump administration at this point.

Does this administration care to much about the law? A judge can rule something but they mostly keep doing the same thing.

Not to mention the supreme court that is willing to let this happen.

> Does this administration care to much about the law?

As a European my opinion of Trump could not be any lower, but it is my understanding that they have complied with all court orders to date (with some being contested all the way to the Supreme Court). They are certainly testing the authority limits of various courts and congressional processes, but they have complied with all legal processes to date.

I don't think this is accurate. According to the New York Times¹ (among numerous other sources), the government has defied court orders at least a small double-digit number of times.

"At least 35 times since August, federal judges have ordered the administration to explain why it should not be punished for violating their orders in immigration cases."

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/us/politics/judges-contem...

“All” might be a stretch but the idea that they just do what they want regardless of what the courts say is just incorrect propaganda. And continuing to find creative ways to defy court orders is something every administration does. And my opinion of the administration is low also, I just don’t like the propaganda and have never understood why we need to make up things about them when there’s so much to dislike that isn’t fictional.

Notable exception: the TikTok ban.

This is far from reality. In truth the Trump administration has been ignoring court orders time and time again. Don't repeat lies.

> That does not end the Court’s concerns, however. Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated. This list is confined to orders issued since January 1, 2026, and the list was hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made, and orders that should have appeared on this list were omitted. This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230...

I am not a lawyer, but I think the Trump administration is not complying with:

0. "DOJ acknowledges violating dozens of recent court orders in New Jersey" [0]

1. In Minnesota, judges reported 94 court-order violations in January and, separately, one judge identified 210 orders in 143 cases where ICE had not complied. [1]

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/18/trump-ice-immigrati...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/us/politics/judges-contem...

You are arguing with the ref that the rules say dogs can't play basketball while a dog dunks on you over and over in the background.

You think "not allowed to" is something this government will ever abide by?

Does the government need a reason to revoke a persons visa? First amendment or not, that is the real question. If no reason is needed then whether the first amendment applies or not is moot.

There seems to be broad discretion that the government has in revoking visas.

Think like this: in the US you can fire someone for almost any reason, except if it's one of certain forbidden reasons.

Similarly, the US government can revoke someone's visa, but they can't revoke someone's visa because of speech protected by the first amendment.

This makes sense but then the outcome of this is all theatrical. What will happen in future is that people have their visas revoked without any comments or reason given. There is no legal requirement to list a reason. It will end up the same as employment law, where people can discriminate and break the law as long as they don't tell the applicant they are doing so.

No the government can't just revoke a visa because Trump doesn't like your face, the reasons must be based in law and there is the pesky thing called due process that needs to be followed. I am honestly flabbergasted that people think the government can just do willy billy.

Yes, a visa can be revoked just that easily.

It's a guest pass.

When getting a visa you're basically asked to agree to America's terms of service. Violations can be found pretty easily in the fine print if someone is really looking.

From there it's the same administrative work to revoke and deport as it is to say ban someone from Twitch for saying the wrong thing.

I think settled law may be that it applies to everyone in the US, but the settled reality is that none of the amendments apply to anyone, and more generally, there are no human rights in the US.

Here’s a video of what this guy was involved in (to my best knowledge):

https://statements.cornell.edu/2024/20241019-career-fair-dis...

I’m a First Amendment absolutist and AFAIK foreign students can protest, but this video shows to me it probably crosses the line into something else. Exactly what, I have no opinion.

Okay, but is being present at a protest where others push through a barrier enough for the first amendment to no longer apply or do we know he was one of the people doing the barrier breaking? The original post implies he bailed out after only 5 minutes - quite possibly because he wasn't on board with the (relatively mild) escalation. At this point, we don't know. But if he did cross that line, he should be criminally prosecuted like the students with American citizenship (if they even are...) and not presumed guilty being punished via the immigration system without any kind of trial.

Can we charge all Jan 6ers with the murder or manslaughter of the congressional security police officers?

There's the case of the getaway driver in a bank robbery that resulted in murder also getting murder, and that is basically what the two poster up is advocating for.

The video shows them get past security / push past security, then protest / disrupt the career fair.

Your framing had me expecting a degree of mayhem and violence that was absent here.

The police would've been justified in arresting everyone present the second they broke through the door with the explicit intent of disrupting the career fair. This is exactly the kind of mayhem and violence that the police exist in order to deter; if the police were unwilling or unable to arrest the protesters, the event organizers should have done so.

Yeah, masks and intentionally antagonizing police doesn't scream peaceful protest

There is no such thing as "settled law" in the US. The Supreme Court can always throw away precedent at any time they choose.

"Settled law" isn't a matter of opinion and it doesn't mean it can't be reversed or overturned. It means the potential legal ambiguity at question has been adjudicated by the Supreme Court (or lower courts without higher court intervention), and that ruling is the operative interpretation that governs how every court below applies the law.

> The government can revoke visas for legitimate immigration violations, but it’s not allowed to use immigration machinery as a pretext to punish political expression.

What is the punishment though? According to the article (written by the same person whose data was subpoenaed) they are still around, alive, safe and sound in geneva, not even formally accused of anything.

So far there is only evidence of an investigation.

And pro-pal movements arr usually pro-terrorism, so it make sense to investigate.