There is a confusion on the left—whose support for free speech is sketchy anyway, and its confusion feigned—over the free speech right and whether foreigners in the United States are entitled to it. More precisely, the blanket and largely rhetorical appeal to free speech misses the point of revoking visas and deporting foreigners no longer welcome in the country. The deportation of a foreigner heretofore legally in the country is the consequence of his visa having been revoked. Somebody who is in the country without a visa has no right to remain in the country. Therefore, deportation is valid. Will this look ugly on camera? Of course. Will they have pregnant wives? Some, yes.
I want to begin with an analogy: If I invite somebody to my house and he is no longer welcome, for whatever reason, then I may ask him to leave. If he won’t leave, I can make him leave one way or another. It’s my house; I am exercising a fundamental right tied to private property: I can invite or eject anyone at my discretion (assuming no contractual obligations such as a lease). If my guest refuses to leave after being asked to do so, I can escalate matters—calling the police or (in some jurisdictions at least) using reasonable force to remove him.
The principle hinges on my authority over my domain. It’s not merely a matter of private property; more fundamentally it’s a power rooted in my sovereignty as a citizen—with private property an extension of my sovereignty.
Scaling this up to the national level, the principle shifts to the realm of a broader sovereignty. It is the same principle in operation, since the nation is the abode of the citizen. Yes, Virginia, my country is analogous to my house. A nation, like a private property owner, has the right, or if you prefer the authority (since governments have powers, while persons have rights), to determine who enters or remains within its borders.
Whether a person should be in the country is determined by the executive, the President, the one office representing the will of the people (since it is the one office all citizens can vote for), specifically the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security under his authority (whatever I thought of the creation of the latter at the time, DHS exists and will persist). A country issuing a visa is akin to an invitation; revoking it is like asking someone to leave my house.
If the foreigner’s actions—say, supporting a terrorist organization or some cause inimical to my country’s foreign policy—violate the terms of that invitation or threaten the host country’s security, then the government can demand their departure. Unlike a citizen, who has a legal claim to remain in his country, a visa holder’s presence is conditional and therefore revocable. This is the crucial difference between citizens and non-citizens. Citizens are analogous to homeowners. Non-citizens are analogous to guests in one’s house—or, if illegally present, a burglar.
Revoking a visa for speech acts, in this case advocating for terrorism, might be framed as a rights violation by some (namely the progressive), especially if the speech itself isn’t illegal in the host country. But the analogy holds: just as I’m not obligated to let a guest stay in my house while he champions the cause of my enemies, my country is not obligated to host a foreigner whose actions or utterances—speech or otherwise—are of the same sort.
Free speech doesn’t guarantee unrestricted residency for non-citizens. Citizens, by contrast, have constitutional protections that limit a state’s ability to exile them for similar behavior. This is among the immunities and privileges of citizenship. This is as it should be.
In the context of this furor over revoking the visas of those effectively voicing support for the terrorist organization Hamas, progressives have been sharing a meme on X and other social media platforms that former Justice Antonin Scalia recognized Fifth Amendment protections. But this is a red herring, since the question concerns the revocation of visa’s for speech and action supporting the enemies of America and their allies. What did Scalia say about that?
Scalia was a staunch defender of free speech in general (as I am). He believed this protection extended to a wide range of expressive activities, including flag burning (as seen in Texas v. Johnson, 1989). However, his views on whether and how these protections applied to aliens were shaped by his interpretation of constitutional limits and precedents. For aliens residing legally in the United States, Scalia generally acknowledged that they enjoyed some First Amendment protections, but he emphasized that these rights were not absolute and could be curtailed by the government’s plenary power over immigration. Scalia respected the precedent laid down in Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1952), where the Court upheld the deportation of resident aliens for their Communist Party affiliations.
He also respected the precedent set in Kleindienst v. Mandel (1972), which held that the First Amendment did not extend to a foreign scholar denied a visa due to his communist advocacy. In Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (1999), in which Scalia wrote the majority opinion, the Court ruled that illegal aliens had no constitutional right to challenge selective deportation based on their political activities. Scalia argued that an alien unlawfully in the country “has no constitutional right to assert selective enforcement as a defense against his deportation,” effectively limiting the ability to claim First Amendment violations in such contexts. This opinion underscores Scalia’s view that immigration status overrides certain constitutional protections.
Scalia was an originalist (as I am). Originalism is the standpoint that believes the Constitution should be interpreted based on its original meaning at the time of its drafting. To be sure, the First Amendment’s text does not explicitly distinguish between citizens and noncitizens, referring only to “the freedom of speech.” However, historical practices, such as the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which targeted noncitizens’ speech, suggests to originalists that the Founders did not intend to extend robust free speech rights to all aliens. So, while Scalia supported free speech as a fundamental right, he qualified that support when it came to aliens. He recognized that lawful resident aliens had some First Amendment protections, but these were subordinate to the government’s immigration authority. His approach was pragmatic, blending free speech advocacy with an originalist view of constitutional and governmental authority.
The equivalency supposed by those defending the free speech right of foreigners in my country is therefore lacking. My rights as a citizen are rooted in my membership in the polity; a foreigner’s presence is a conditional privilege. If the reason for revocation is tied to something as concrete as supporting a terrorist group (not just abstract speech), it’s not about punishing expression, but about managing risk. Courts have historically upheld this distinction—national security trumps individual speech claims for non-citizens. Scalia agreed.
The law in this area is was clear as law can be. In the US, visas, whether given to tourists, or for education or work, or whatever else, are governed by the Immigration and Nationality Act. The State Department and DHS can revoke a visa if the holder engages in activities that violate its terms—overstaying, working without authorization, or, crucially, posing a threat to national security. Supporting a terrorist organization or cause, whether in word or deed, falls under inadmissibility grounds (8 U.S.C. § 1182, see section 3), which includes affiliations with or advocacy of groups that undermine vital US interests or the interests of allies. No formal conviction is required in such cases; the government has broad discretion if it believes the individual’s actions or associations are dangerous.
One specific case progressives decry is the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University whose student visa was revoked. She was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 25, 2025, in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Ozturk co-authored an opinion piece in The Tufts Daily in March 2024. This case is a bit tricky since Ozturk was writing about Tufts Community Union Senate passing three out of four resolutions demanding, among other things, that the University acknowledge the Palestinian genocide (perhaps neither here nor there, but Israel’s action constitute a genocide no more than Allied bombing of Germany during WWII constituted genocide, a point so obvious that one may reasonably conclude that the rhetoric is to advance the aims of Hamas) and disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel, a demand inimical to the foreign policy of the United States. For its part, the university declined to actualize the resolutions passed by the Senate.
It may be argued, then, that the op-ed is about process rather than substance—that Ozturk is reporting on a matter. On the other hand, there is this from the op-ed: “These resolutions were the product of meaningful debate by the Senate and represent a sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law. Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.” To be as charitable as I can be, this is an opinion. At the same time, I don’t know everything the State Department or DHS knows, so I must reserve judgment on the government’s case until more information is available. My hesitancy on a factual matter does no violence to the principle upon which my argument rests. But the facts are not irrelevant.
The case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student, is a bit more straightforward. A Palestinian born in Syria, Khalil was detained by ICE on March 8, 2025, in New York City. Khalil entered the country on a student visa in 2022 and later applied for permanent residency in 2024 after marrying an American citizen. His detention follows his prominent role in organizing pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia in 2024, which I reported on Freedom and Reason last year.
The Trump administration has accused Khalil of supporting Hamas—which is a designated terrorist organization. The administration has not publicly detailed evidence beyond his activism, but a court filing alleges Khalil failed to disclose that he had previously worked for the Syria office of the British Embassy in Beirut. He also withheld his ties to the UNRWA (a UN agency for Palestinians), as well as other groups like Columbia University Apartheid Divest on his visa application, which is a problem. Khalil not being forthcoming with his political associations is what tripped him up. The Trump administration has moreover stated that Khalil poses a threat to US security, citing the law that allows noncitizens to be deported if their presence has “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The point I wish to make here is that the appeal to free speech in the case of visa revocation in instances where utterances are made in support of terrorists groups or actions, or that are inimical to the national security or foreign policy of the United States, or untruthfulness on a visa application form, is a red herring.
As noted at the outset, the deportation of the foreigner is the consequence of the visa being revoked. The bottom line here is that that somebody who in the country without a visa has no right to remain in the country, just as a guest in my house has not right to remain there if I have determined that he is no longer welcome. We can quibble about whether the revocation was made on rational grounds, and this will require more information, which may never be forthcoming, but the power of the government to revoke visas is a legitimate power.
Again, I don’t know what evidence the State Department or the DHS has on any of the actors progressives are defending, matters of national security that may remain classified. But I think we all know, and will admit if we are honest, that the pro-Hamas crowd defends these figures not out of support for free speech as a general principle but because they agree with their utterances and actions. This we know because, in the progressive worldview, appeal to principle is a rhetorical tool in the pursuit of political or ideological goals, which in this case are anti-American and anti-Israel—if not antisemitic.
It is vitally important to negate threats before they manifest, as well as to send a strong signal to those who wish to be guests in our country that they are not here to undermine our national interests but to do the things the visa very generously awarded to them specifies. I reserve my right to criticize the government if the reasons for revocation are objectionable. However, pragmatically, something needs to be done about the unrest on our campuses, which is often not justified by appeals to free speech (which goes for citizens, as well).
The distinction I am making, and this is really the point of this essay, also serves this end: to socialize for purposes of valorizing the immunities and privileges of citizenship in a democratic republic, something the open borders crowd dismisses (selectively, of course, as we can easily imagine that an ascribed fascist would not be afforded the same respect). The Bill of Rights simply doesn’t apply equitably given citizenship status. Otherwise, what would be the point of citizenship?
There is a process, and presently both cases cited are tied up in legal proceedings. These foreign nationals thus enjoy due process in the spirit of the Scalia pull quote. But the principle I am articulating is an important principle to acknowledge: a nation is for its citizens. I am not a guest in my own home. That fact counts for a lot.
freedom and reason 