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"The Chinese students were deemed inadmissible to the United States based on information discovered during the CBP inspection," the CBP statement said. Look. T

"The Chinese students were deemed inadmissible to the United States based on information discovered during the CBP inspection," the CBP statement said. Look. The Feds don’t always have bad reasons for doing things. I know we have a lot of problems and the social media and computer searches aren’t something I find myself condoning, but before we jump to any conclusions we should at least wait to see why exactly they were denied entry. It could be BS, or they could be targeting Hong Kong supporters amongst Chinese students currently studying in the US or Canada or elsewhere. It seems odd to me that the Feds would target these specific 9 students so I think it’s worth the time to wait until we hear more.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
> Look. The Feds don’t always have bad reasons for doing things. This is true, but they've done nothing to deserve the benefit of the doubt, especially when they continue to conceal information. Right now, unfortunately, assuming malice until proven otherwise is the rational thing to do with CBP.
- ericmay 7y ago
  certainly not from a volume standpoint, since millions of people, including Chinese university students have no problems at the border.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    Does volume matter here? I'd rather go with "times CBP were right". As in how many of the time they were involved, they got involved for the right reasons.
- diminoten 7y ago
  Hardly rational, considering these 9 are excluded while a large percentage of the ~360k or so Chinese students studying in the US (and the ~3 million Chinese tourists that come to the US every year) seem to be able to travel in and out of the US. It's buzzword bingo. China + CBP = web traffic. It's hot right now, so this is a good article to write if you're interested in clicks. The implication here that a policy change has happened is (thus far) false. These 9 people were flagged for some specific, long standing reason, and it's generally not news except for the buzzwords that make it "interesting".
  - nraynaud 7y ago
    The policy has changed, there is no precedent according to professionals. There were way more students flagged than that on that day, ASU is the only one coming forward for now. But they had never seen such a high secondary screening rate, detained for so long, such a weird return “deal”, nor that many visa revoked in a single day.
    - pbourke 7y ago
      What do you mean weird return deal? Isn’t that a common practice when someone is found inadmissible? If nothing else is out of order, you’re given the chance to withdraw your request to enter the US.
      - nraynaud 7y ago
        After the visa as been revoked?
      - mikelward 7y ago
        I thought normally the airline paid in this case?
        mikelward 7y ago
        I misunderstood. It sounds like the airline must fly them back, but they can recover their costs from the passenger. https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/23622/who-pays-for-the-return-air-ticket-when-a-country-refuses-entry-by-air https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/23622/who-pays-fo...
      - shkkmo 7y ago
        The "weird deal" is this: > told they needed to return to China, that they needed to pay for their own airline ticket to do so or face a ban from re-entering the U.S. for five years It is not normal for a re-entry ban to made contingent on the traveler paying for the return ticket. Usually airlines are required by the government to pay for the return ticket and it is left up to the airlines to recover that cost from their passengers. My guess would be either that 1) government officials are trying to avoid any legal conflict with airlines about the grounds on which entry was denied. or 2) Airline lobby groups got this policy implemented to reduce their costs.
wheelerwj 7y ago
> It seems odd to me that the Feds would target these specific 9 students so I think it’s worth the time to wait until we hear more. agreed, but its important to understand the role of the media is bring things to light, for the sake of transparency so that society can hold people accountable. While we should absolutely resolve to get more information before making any kind of decision, we should also ask why the CBP is able to operate with such a lack of transparency that these kind of stories are a requirement.
- mises 7y ago
  > we should ask why the CBP is able to operate with such a lack of transparency that these kind of stories are a requirement This is why we have habeas corpus. CBP has to charge them in reasonable time or let them go (though I'm not sure they have to let them into the country). There is a legal framework for this kind of stuff, though it's almost certainly worth waiting until we actually get information. Let's consider the other side: if CBP thinks it found something, it's possibly got a reason to flag some one. However, it's probably not good for CBP to then go around telling every one, "Hey! We think we found some thing on these people!"
nraynaud 7y ago
They did not target those 9, there were about 20-30 of them in the secondary room according to witnesses, all Chinese (but LAX is big so they might have a special Chinese secondary room, couldn’t clear that up). Only one university decided to come forward for now. This behavior of CBP is highly unusual according to professionals.
- caf 7y ago
  I feel like the unreported yet actually interesting background here is that the Administration seems to have decided, for some reason, to pick a fight with the universities. The reason that other institutions involved haven't come forward is likely because this kind of thing is terrible advertising for the international student industry.
  - nraynaud 7y ago
    I speculate that UCLA must be impacted (just size and in the west), but they had a Chinese student cheating ring scandal recently, so they probably will have a public perception if they come forwards. In a strongly sinophobe time, Americans believe all one billion Chineses are the same.
- LorenPechtel 7y ago
  I can easily see sorting them out by language. While they no doubt spoke decent English CBP would want an inspector that could read Chinese to do the inspection.
goda90 7y ago
Why would the US have problems with Hong Kong supporters?
- isostatic 7y ago
  I read it as the Chinese students could be targeting HK supporters / relatives at US universities.
  - ArtDev 7y ago
    Reminds me of the Chinese students protesting the Dalai Lama in Seattle. Poor brainwashed morons. I almost, but not quite, felt sorry for them.
aqme28 7y ago
> before we jump to any conclusions we should at least wait to see why exactly they were denied entry I understand it's not as easy, but we should at least try for "innocent until proven guilty" when it comes to the government denying privileges. I'm all for the government denying entry, but it should be clear what the offense was.
- taxidump 7y ago
  >we should at least try for "innocent until proven guilty" This method of justice is reserved for our court system inside the US and most likley not work for our borders due to the fact agents must make educated or gut decisions. >I'm all for the government denying entry, but it should be clear what the offense was. This seens to be a contradiction to your other thought.
  - dragonsh 7y ago
    > This method of justice is reserved for our court system inside the US and most likley not work for our borders due to the fact agents must make educated or gut decisions. You mean there are two standards in USA one at the borders another in the country. So all countries denying reporters, human rights workers or dissidents or protestors to enter their borders are doing it correct, because the rule of law is inside borders not outside. So your thought justify very much the border agents analysing your phones and electronic media before entering, like the way in recent memories happening in Hong Kong borders due to protests. You might, but personally I cannot agree with such a notion of dual standards of law. I understand entry to a country and visa is a privilege not a right. But if a country believes in rule is law and on foundations of "Innocent until proven guilty", then it should abide by it.
    - throwaway77778 7y ago
      It is really a difficult call. On one hand, “first they came after the Jews”. On another, by Chinese laws their citizens have obligations to cooperate with their intelligence agencies. China is a technologically advanced mass surveillance state, with dictatorship regime on the rise. This dictatorship regime and its intelligence services have no issues with controlling their citizens by any means possible (from requests to follow their laws to intimidation of family members, etc).
boomboomsubban 7y ago
>we should at least wait to see why exactly they were denied entry. Is there any obligation for them to tell us that? Unless Arizona State continues bringing this up, we may not hear anything else.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

> Look. The Feds don’t always have bad reasons for doing things. This is true, but they've done nothing to deserve the benefit of the doubt, especially when they continue to conceal information. Right now, unfortunately, assuming malice until proven otherwise is the rational thing to do with CBP.

ericmay 7y ago
certainly not from a volume standpoint, since millions of people, including Chinese university students have no problems at the border.
- viraptor 7y ago
  Does volume matter here? I'd rather go with "times CBP were right". As in how many of the time they were involved, they got involved for the right reasons.
diminoten 7y ago
Hardly rational, considering these 9 are excluded while a large percentage of the ~360k or so Chinese students studying in the US (and the ~3 million Chinese tourists that come to the US every year) seem to be able to travel in and out of the US. It's buzzword bingo. China + CBP = web traffic. It's hot right now, so this is a good article to write if you're interested in clicks. The implication here that a policy change has happened is (thus far) false. These 9 people were flagged for some specific, long standing reason, and it's generally not news except for the buzzwords that make it "interesting".
- nraynaud 7y ago
  The policy has changed, there is no precedent according to professionals. There were way more students flagged than that on that day, ASU is the only one coming forward for now. But they had never seen such a high secondary screening rate, detained for so long, such a weird return “deal”, nor that many visa revoked in a single day.
  - pbourke 7y ago
    What do you mean weird return deal? Isn’t that a common practice when someone is found inadmissible? If nothing else is out of order, you’re given the chance to withdraw your request to enter the US.
    - nraynaud 7y ago
      After the visa as been revoked?
    - mikelward 7y ago
      I thought normally the airline paid in this case?
      - mikelward 7y ago
        I misunderstood. It sounds like the airline must fly them back, but they can recover their costs from the passenger. https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/23622/who-pays-for-the-return-air-ticket-when-a-country-refuses-entry-by-air https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/23622/who-pays-fo...
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      The "weird deal" is this: > told they needed to return to China, that they needed to pay for their own airline ticket to do so or face a ban from re-entering the U.S. for five years It is not normal for a re-entry ban to made contingent on the traveler paying for the return ticket. Usually airlines are required by the government to pay for the return ticket and it is left up to the airlines to recover that cost from their passengers. My guess would be either that 1) government officials are trying to avoid any legal conflict with airlines about the grounds on which entry was denied. or 2) Airline lobby groups got this policy implemented to reduce their costs.

wheelerwj 7y ago

> It seems odd to me that the Feds would target these specific 9 students so I think it’s worth the time to wait until we hear more. agreed, but its important to understand the role of the media is bring things to light, for the sake of transparency so that society can hold people accountable. While we should absolutely resolve to get more information before making any kind of decision, we should also ask why the CBP is able to operate with such a lack of transparency that these kind of stories are a requirement.

mises 7y ago
> we should ask why the CBP is able to operate with such a lack of transparency that these kind of stories are a requirement This is why we have habeas corpus. CBP has to charge them in reasonable time or let them go (though I'm not sure they have to let them into the country). There is a legal framework for this kind of stuff, though it's almost certainly worth waiting until we actually get information. Let's consider the other side: if CBP thinks it found something, it's possibly got a reason to flag some one. However, it's probably not good for CBP to then go around telling every one, "Hey! We think we found some thing on these people!"

nraynaud 7y ago

They did not target those 9, there were about 20-30 of them in the secondary room according to witnesses, all Chinese (but LAX is big so they might have a special Chinese secondary room, couldn’t clear that up). Only one university decided to come forward for now. This behavior of CBP is highly unusual according to professionals.

caf 7y ago
I feel like the unreported yet actually interesting background here is that the Administration seems to have decided, for some reason, to pick a fight with the universities. The reason that other institutions involved haven't come forward is likely because this kind of thing is terrible advertising for the international student industry.
- nraynaud 7y ago
  I speculate that UCLA must be impacted (just size and in the west), but they had a Chinese student cheating ring scandal recently, so they probably will have a public perception if they come forwards. In a strongly sinophobe time, Americans believe all one billion Chineses are the same.
LorenPechtel 7y ago
I can easily see sorting them out by language. While they no doubt spoke decent English CBP would want an inspector that could read Chinese to do the inspection.

goda90 7y ago

Why would the US have problems with Hong Kong supporters?

isostatic 7y ago
I read it as the Chinese students could be targeting HK supporters / relatives at US universities.
- ArtDev 7y ago
  Reminds me of the Chinese students protesting the Dalai Lama in Seattle. Poor brainwashed morons. I almost, but not quite, felt sorry for them.

aqme28 7y ago

> before we jump to any conclusions we should at least wait to see why exactly they were denied entry I understand it's not as easy, but we should at least try for "innocent until proven guilty" when it comes to the government denying privileges. I'm all for the government denying entry, but it should be clear what the offense was.

taxidump 7y ago
>we should at least try for "innocent until proven guilty" This method of justice is reserved for our court system inside the US and most likley not work for our borders due to the fact agents must make educated or gut decisions. >I'm all for the government denying entry, but it should be clear what the offense was. This seens to be a contradiction to your other thought.
- dragonsh 7y ago
  > This method of justice is reserved for our court system inside the US and most likley not work for our borders due to the fact agents must make educated or gut decisions. You mean there are two standards in USA one at the borders another in the country. So all countries denying reporters, human rights workers or dissidents or protestors to enter their borders are doing it correct, because the rule of law is inside borders not outside. So your thought justify very much the border agents analysing your phones and electronic media before entering, like the way in recent memories happening in Hong Kong borders due to protests. You might, but personally I cannot agree with such a notion of dual standards of law. I understand entry to a country and visa is a privilege not a right. But if a country believes in rule is law and on foundations of "Innocent until proven guilty", then it should abide by it.
  - throwaway77778 7y ago
    It is really a difficult call. On one hand, “first they came after the Jews”. On another, by Chinese laws their citizens have obligations to cooperate with their intelligence agencies. China is a technologically advanced mass surveillance state, with dictatorship regime on the rise. This dictatorship regime and its intelligence services have no issues with controlling their citizens by any means possible (from requests to follow their laws to intimidation of family members, etc).

boomboomsubban 7y ago

>we should at least wait to see why exactly they were denied entry. Is there any obligation for them to tell us that? Unless Arizona State continues bringing this up, we may not hear anything else.