International Students, Protests, Free Speech, and Consequences
A few days ago, WaPo reported on the “higher stakes” for international students who engage in pro-Palestinian campus protests. As the paper noted, if an international student is expelled (and Vanderbilt, for one, has expelled student protestors), that would lead to termination of their visa and, thus, end their authorization to remain lawfully in the United States. Even lesser disciplinary action, such as a suspension (which Cornell has done and Columbia is threatening), can lead to visa termination if the student “can no longer maintain a full course of study.”
International students who don’t engage in protests but take to social media to voice their opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may also face “higher stakes” for engaging in even these efforts. I spoke with my university paper, the OU Daily, about these issues. The concern is whether the student “endorses or espouses terrorist activity” with their posts. See INA § 212(a)(3)(B)(i)(IV).
Immprof Michael Kagan (UNLV) has considered these issues before. Check out his articles: (1) Do Immigrants Have Freedom of Speech?, 6 Cal. L. Rev. Circuit 84 (2015); (2) When Immigrants Speak: The Precarious Status of Non-Citizen Speech Under the First Amendment, 57 B B.C. L. Rev. 1327 (2016); (3) Regulatory Constitutional Law: Protecting Immigrant Free Speech without Relying on the First Amendment, 56 Ga. L. Rev. 1417 (2022).
I, for one, encourage international students to rely on their U.S. citizen allies in this moment and to allow those allies to take on the mantle of social media advocacy and in-person protests. The stakes are simply too high for international students.
-KitJ