The Trump administration has announced plans to revisit all of the 55 million foreigners with United States visas, raising new concerns about crackdowns on free speech. Jake, tell us, why is this a problem? Yeah, it's an enormous problem. I saw the headline. [00:00:16] I was like, I guarantee you what they're going to say is they're going to vet for terrorism or support for terrorism. First of all, if you're a terrorist, yeah, of course we should vet for that. That's not the issue. Right. And then you read a little further and they're like, no, no, just in case it's not clear, if you oppose Israel, we're basically going to call you a [00:00:34] terrorist and kick you out of the country. And then we're going to pretend that Israel doesn't control our government. Okay. Well, let's see the rest of the stories and then maybe we'll discuss, maybe we'll debate. - We'll find out. - Yeah. So the federal government is selling this new plan as a way to clamp down on alleged [00:00:53] abuses of the legal immigration system, including people who come to the states for tourism, work or school. So this is from the Washington Post says. In an emailed statement, the State Department said that continuous vetting will allow the agency to revoke visas upon finding signs of potential ineligibility, [00:01:13] including things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization. The US State Department released a statement about this, [00:01:29] saying we review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records, or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance. So on top of that, the State Department has also introduced new vetting measures, [00:01:47] including a review of social media accounts for hostility toward the United States and anti-Semitism. So US Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security that is responsible for initially granting visas, [00:02:02] wrote in a policy alert this week that it was updating its guidance to say that it will vet applicants for links to anti-American or terrorist groups, or those that support or promote anti-Semitic terrorism. [00:02:17] If any violation is found, the person will be subject to deportation. Of course, the concern here is what the Trump administration will consider to be promoting anti-Semitic terrorism. In the cases of student visa holders like Rumaisa Ozturk, [00:02:33] criticism of Israel was enough for the State Department to target her. And it appears that she's not alone. The administration announced earlier this week that it had revoked more than 6000 student visas for overstays and legal violations, including roughly 200 [00:02:50] to 300 for what it described as terrorism. In response to the new vetting plan, David Beer, the director of immigration policy at the Cato Institute, says it sounded like the administration wants to proactively conduct reviews [00:03:07] of social media posts and revoke visas based not on conduct, but speech. I doubt that's feasible for everyone, but I suspect that these reviews will be done in a discriminatory manner, targeting immigrants with certain backgrounds and in certain visa categories or specific people they want to excuse to revoke. [00:03:26] Yeah. So this is very, very concerning. There are a lot of free speech concerns to be discussed here. And, that was the first thing that jumped out to me when I was reading this story is like, who is defining what is terrorist activity and who is defining what is anti-Semitic activity? [00:03:43] And we've seen things like this happening already on college campuses across the country, where students are being called out for being anti-Semitic or for engaging in anti-Semitic behavior, when really they're just supporting Palestine. And we've also seen a lot of universities cave to the Trump administration on these [00:03:59] grounds and say, yeah, you're right. Take these students, you know, arrest them, whatever you have to do. Protesters who are peacefully protesting for the most part because they don't want to be, supportive of what Israel is doing in Gaza? Michael, what are your thoughts on this? [00:04:14] And, where do you think this could possibly be headed? Well, it would be headed to the court because to the courts, clearly, because this would be this is saying basically, if you have a visa, you're here. Visa is granted to you by the United States government, except you are not subject to the protections of the First Amendment, which [00:04:32] is that doesn't apply in this country. Right. The First Amendment is the very First Amendment right. It is the one that says, you can say what you want. And like you said, yes, discerning between what is free speech and what is terrorism. That's for the courts to decide. [00:04:47] And saying that this is, in fact, something they can do is I think the courts would have an easier time allowing this to happen, but a very much more difficult time, dealing with how I think it's actually quite clear cut of how it is defined, [00:05:03] because there's no way that you can protect free speech at the same time as saying calling what someone who is here on a foreign visa is doing is terrorism. And, you know, the whole notion this is the Republican Party doing and the conservatives doing what they do very well to the Democrats and doing it to, [00:05:21] the people that are here on student visas, which is to that there might be one person in a crowd one year saying defund the police, or, six year old should have, transgender surgery without, without, you know, any kind of consent. [00:05:38] There may be one person saying each of those things. There may have been a couple of people on college campuses who weren't just anti-Israel, but were anti-Semitic, which, by the way, is also protected in this country. You can be an anti-Semite in America. You're welcome to it. But but what they do is they as they lampoon it [00:05:56] and they say that everyone is doing that. And that's why we have to deport these people, and that's why we have it. It is, again, more of this dictatorship, more of this fascism, you know, small f fascism if you want, but it is. These are hallmarks of what fascism is. And and it's happening here in our backyard right now. [00:06:13] - And nobody's irate enough about it. - Yeah. So I'll back up a couple of things that Michael's saying. So first of all, great point about the Constitution. So if you don't know, the Supreme Court for over 200 years has said that if you're here, you have First Amendment rights, it doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not. [00:06:30] And so some on the right say, no, I hate that. And I want only citizens to have First Amendment rights. Okay, take it up with the Supreme Court. They have been very clear about this for a long, long time. So okay, you want to reverse that and say, okay, we get to have more rights [00:06:45] than lorded over other people. ET cetera. Okay. Go for it. But it's un-American. All right. Now, secondly, is the the wordplay here. That's the real problem. Okay. So for to Michael's point, are you allowed to be anti-Semitic in America? Yeah, you're allowed to be anything you like. [00:07:02] So do I want him to vet, for example, for anti turkishness, I mean, already It's hilarious, right? Nobody's going to do that. Nobody's going to look to see if you're anti Norwegian or Anti-turkish or anti Malaysian or anti Asian or any of those things. And so already we know this is absurd because they're only going [00:07:19] to look for things that criticize Israel. We all know that right. So but even if they did they said you could root out not just like three dudes we found out who were anti-turkish, but all the islamophobes. I'd say, no, that's not that's not what we do here. [00:07:34] They're Islamophobic. That's their business. Not my business. Okay. They come here, we'll have a debate. It is what it is. So that's not. And then the next phrase anti-American. Who the hell interprets anti-American? Okay, I criticize America because I love America. [00:07:49] I wanted to get better. I want to perfect a union. Is that un-American? I think Steve Bannon is an American piece of crap because he wants to roll out military in the streets. So do I get to decide that he's unAmerican or anti-American? It's absurd. And then you get to support or promote those views. [00:08:05] Oh, forget about it all. Your speech is gone. On anything could be support or promote, right? And then finally, the worst word of all terrorism. It's just a blanket statement that they throw out over anything they don't like. Okay. And it started with Muslims and and in some cases actual terrorists. [00:08:21] Now it's expanded and expanded and it's just anyone we don't like is a terrorist, financial terrorist word terrorists, terrorist. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Everyone that the authoritarian government doesn't want is called a terrorist or supports terrorism towards specific people. [00:08:39] Okay. This is junk. It's meant to control us. And yes, it's done on behalf of a foreign government and we all know it. I loathe it, I can't stand their control over this country. There's no other country that could get America to say. [00:08:55] You should look over 55 million people in your country and make sure they don't oppose a different country. That's absurd. That's insane. All right. Yeah. - Last word. - Yeah. You know, when I was younger, like, much younger. I never understood why authoritarian governments or even like monarchies from, [00:09:14] you know, of the days of yore would dictate religion to people. Because in my mind, like, sure, I'm a Protestant now. Or I can just say, okay, I'm a Catholic now, but it doesn't mean that people actually believe in the religion or the belief that's being forced upon them. But then I realized it really only takes 1 or 2 generations, if that, [00:09:33] for beliefs to take hold within a society. So if you force the words and the actions onto a populace, then those words embed themselves eventually into people's minds. And yeah, it really doesn't take as long as I feel like it should for people to just give up what they know of the world and of their own beliefs [00:09:50] to adopt something else. So all of this just feels to me like they're really attempting to force beliefs on a population that clearly feels some type of way, specifically about Israel. They're attempting to silence the opposition, and just by silencing opposition, then people can be fooled into thinking that there is no opposition, [00:10:07] or they're just not thinking about opposition or by, you know, making people afraid to go to schools or go to polling booths and to express their, their sentiments that way. They really are they have a good chance of being successful in stamping out a conversation that they would rather people stop having. [00:10:25] And yeah, it's obviously ridiculous that, you know, we have this term anti-Semitism that is so specific. It's just a specific type of racism, you know? They're not trying to stamp out racism in general. We already know that. They don't care about racism here in this country. You are within your rights to be racist and to be loud and proud. [00:10:44] Racist, right? But not anti-Semitic, which is just a very specific type. And it just it's also disingenuous. We know what they're doing there. So, I mean, I guess they're being transparent about it. So you can't fault them for that. But like, what are we doing here and why isn't anybody in Congress [00:11:00] doing anything about it? And I mean, that's a big part of why I'm upset about all of this. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.