4 ms·

For me what is particularly galling is that the state department had already vetted and approved this person. Remember, part of the visa application includes y

For me what is particularly galling is that the state department had already vetted and approved this person. Remember, part of the visa application includes your social media profiles, so he's already been vetted. Then some random CBP agent reads through Facebook posts of his friends and denies him entry. Some of the other comments here bewilder me. The US used to stand for fairness, equality, and due process. We've allowed the worst of ourselves (fear of the other) to destroy the best of ourselves (openness, fairness, justice).

devoply 7y ago
> random CBP agent High School grad with relatively low intelligence and likely conservative 'murica values. > Some of the other comments here bewilder me. The US used to stand for fairness, equality, and due process. We've allowed the worst of ourselves (fear of the other) to destroy the best of ourselves (openness, fairness, justice). Crypto-racism is in vogue in America these days. Where any deference to the law or the rules is used as cover for hatred of various minorities.
- gumby 7y ago
  This was Boston, where nothing is "crypto" (hidden) about the racism. It's a badge of honor. Source: attended high school in city of Boston; university in city of Cambridge. Got outa dodge immediately after that but my friends who still live there tell me it's as bad, or worse, than it was in the 80s.
hos234 7y ago
Where is the CBP/state dept side to this story?
masonic 7y ago
Yet the media tend to blame government when such social media activity goes unnoticed until a tragedy happens, like Tashfeen Malik. She, a Pakistani in the USA on a valid visa, had pledged allegiance to ISIS on social media before the San Bernardino massacre. Subsequent policies to inspect social media are the result.
masonic 7y ago
Then some random CBP agent reads through Facebook posts of his friends and denies him entry. You can't know whether it's that simple. Note that nobody at The Crimson or the New York Times ever read the social media content in question themselves; they simply repeat his account of it. If a social media "friend" simply posts something on his/her own wall, that is no reflection on the subject of the examination. But if the subject himself then Likes or positively comments on such a posting, then it can have relevance.
ianleeclark 7y ago
> The US used to stand for fairness, equality, and due process. We've allowed the worst of ourselves (fear of the other) to destroy the best of ourselves (openness, fairness, justice). Where do you get this ahistorical mythical belief? When we were deporting millions of Hispanic people (citizens included) in the 30s, how just was that? Was it fair to upend their lives and send them to a foreign land? When we let the Klan sweep over the Reconstruction south, was that just? Jim-Crow southern laws and their constituent sumptuary codes sure don't seem very open to me. Fear of the other is deeply ingrained into the US. See the Japanese internment camps, see white flight post segregation, see the modern xenophobia aimed towards Russians.
- sampo 7y ago
  People from much worse regimes have always been escaping to the US, to get some of that openness, fairness, justice, even if it's not perfect, it's usually better than where they left from.
  - ianleeclark 7y ago
    > even if it's not perfect This is such a tragic underselling of the horrors that I described.
    - sampo 7y ago
      What would have been your favorite country in the 30s to the 50s?
      - ianleeclark 7y ago
        Just claim you misspoke or something. How are you actually doubling down that the US and it's willing citizenry was only just missing the mark of perfection through it's abuse and exploitation of its own citizens? What a complete joke
        sampo 7y ago

devoply 7y ago

> random CBP agent High School grad with relatively low intelligence and likely conservative 'murica values. > Some of the other comments here bewilder me. The US used to stand for fairness, equality, and due process. We've allowed the worst of ourselves (fear of the other) to destroy the best of ourselves (openness, fairness, justice). Crypto-racism is in vogue in America these days. Where any deference to the law or the rules is used as cover for hatred of various minorities.

gumby 7y ago
This was Boston, where nothing is "crypto" (hidden) about the racism. It's a badge of honor. Source: attended high school in city of Boston; university in city of Cambridge. Got outa dodge immediately after that but my friends who still live there tell me it's as bad, or worse, than it was in the 80s.

hos234 7y ago

Where is the CBP/state dept side to this story?

masonic 7y ago

Yet the media tend to blame government when such social media activity goes unnoticed until a tragedy happens, like Tashfeen Malik. She, a Pakistani in the USA on a valid visa, had pledged allegiance to ISIS on social media before the San Bernardino massacre. Subsequent policies to inspect social media are the result.

masonic 7y ago

Then some random CBP agent reads through Facebook posts of his friends and denies him entry. You can't know whether it's that simple. Note that nobody at The Crimson or the New York Times ever read the social media content in question themselves; they simply repeat his account of it. If a social media "friend" simply posts something on his/her own wall, that is no reflection on the subject of the examination. But if the subject himself then Likes or positively comments on such a posting, then it can have relevance.

ianleeclark 7y ago

> The US used to stand for fairness, equality, and due process. We've allowed the worst of ourselves (fear of the other) to destroy the best of ourselves (openness, fairness, justice). Where do you get this ahistorical mythical belief? When we were deporting millions of Hispanic people (citizens included) in the 30s, how just was that? Was it fair to upend their lives and send them to a foreign land? When we let the Klan sweep over the Reconstruction south, was that just? Jim-Crow southern laws and their constituent sumptuary codes sure don't seem very open to me. Fear of the other is deeply ingrained into the US. See the Japanese internment camps, see white flight post segregation, see the modern xenophobia aimed towards Russians.

sampo 7y ago
People from much worse regimes have always been escaping to the US, to get some of that openness, fairness, justice, even if it's not perfect, it's usually better than where they left from.
- ianleeclark 7y ago
  > even if it's not perfect This is such a tragic underselling of the horrors that I described.
  - sampo 7y ago
    What would have been your favorite country in the 30s to the 50s?
    - ianleeclark 7y ago
      Just claim you misspoke or something. How are you actually doubling down that the US and it's willing citizenry was only just missing the mark of perfection through it's abuse and exploitation of its own citizens? What a complete joke
      - sampo 7y ago