Deporting International Students for Social Media Posts is Un-American

Tolerating people saying things we don't like is cornerstone to American tradition—this current turn is not. Plus, it only hurts our most dominant export sector: higher education.

Note: I have been hesitant to talk too much about national politics in College Towns because there is already so much coverage of these issues. I usually try to keep focus on local, smaller issues. But I feel compelled to write this post because I have published on the historical distrust of international students in the US. Likewise, taking care of these students is also a key part of my job.

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When I was in grad school in 2017, gearing up for a trip to China to do my doctoral research, I heard warnings that my phone could be seized at the border and searched for posts that were deemed anti-China. Nothing like that happened to me, but these were the warnings circulating in the China studies community.

These types of monitoring of social media at the border were labeled alarming, authoritarian, and intrusive by various Western media outlets. The concerns certainly sent chills through researchers and students going to China from the US that have never really recovered.

So the recent news that the US Federal government has been searching social media posts by international students as an excuse for deportations has prompted concern about events happening in my own country. Under the Donald Trump administration now, the US government is acting more like the Chinese government then.

To me, these actions are simply un-American.

Concerns about visiting China back in 2019 due to phone and social media searches via Engadget on Yahoo. The same concerns are happening in the US today via AP.

Freedom of Speech is American

Here in the United States, we have much stronger freedom of speech protections than most other countries around the world. Even compared to our Western peers in Europe, where there has been a crackdown on what citizens can post on the Internet, the US stands above through the First Amendment and other protections for speech.

Of course, this freedom of speech maximization creates friction and fights. The beauty of our system is that sometimes it’s ugly. Americans can yell mean things at each other until we’ve worked out our differences. We do not need our government to tell us to be nice.

International students coming to the US get to enjoy these same protections on speech without the government telling them to knock it off. It can endear them to our system just like it has always done in the past. I am reminded of the famous story Joseph Nye tells in Soft Power (2004) about how freedom of speech was an asset during the Cold War:

The absence of policies of control can itself be a source of attraction. The Czech film director Milos Forman recounts that when the Communist government let in the American film Twelve Angry Men because of its harsh portrait of American institutions, Czech intellectuals responded by thinking, ’If that country can make this kind of thing, films about itself, oh, that country must have a pride and must have an inner strength, and must be strong enough and must be free.

Letting Henry Fonda agonize over the flaws within the US justice system demonstrated real power. Just like letting international students complain on TikTok about US foreign policy demonstrates real power. Both demonstrate that America is strong and assured of itself.

I know the US hasn’t always lived up to its highest values, but we are at our best when we do. Banning Twelve Angry Men would have been weak and un-American then. The US government prodding for piddly social media posts by international students is weak and un-American now.

Conservative Case for Free Speech

I know what some conservative readers might respond to this argument with: “The liberals have been fighting against free speech for a decade! They started cancel culture! Now they are getting a taste of their own medicine.”

I can actually sympathize with this argument. I have long warned that our institutions should not abandon the principle of free speech. The era from roughly 2016 to 2024 was a blight on that principle, with some recognition of the error recently.

A post from me in 2019 back when my account was small, with an article that highlights conservative student concerns of free speech attacks.

What I would retort to conservatives defending the US Federal government searching through social media posts: “Why do you want to celebrate the exact thing you’ve hated for a decade? Why abandon your own principles?”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has stayed consistent on this issue throughout this era. The organization has also taken a lot of heat from liberals and peers within higher education for for its stance. Now, they are taking the same stand against scouring social media posts by the Trump administration:

The revocation of student visas should not be used to punish and filter out ideas disfavored by the federal government. The strength of our nation’s system of higher education derives from the exchange of the widest range of views, even unpopular or dissenting ones.

They add a caveat that students who “commit crimes — including vandalism, threats, or violence” should face some kind of consequences, with visa revocation as an option. If a student violates university policies, wrecks campus environment, or ruins a classroom, they should indeed face some kind of punishment. I just don’t want the Federal government coming in to be the local police—that’s un-American.

International Ed Is Our Top Export

The Trump administration has been obsessed with rebalancing trade deficits with other countries. Lost in this craze is that international education is one of our strongest trade exports. The Federal government searching through social media posts will only scare off these students, just like it has done for US students going to China.

The economic benefit of these international students in the US contributed $43.8 billion to the US economy, accounting for 378,000 jobs. These students coming here from abroad are actually covered by the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), meaning it is a service categorized under international trade.

We have the largest, most coveted supply of higher education on the planet.

The difference between American students going abroad and other countries sending students here is stark, as shown on Table 1. I used Trump’s own tariff calculation to show the massive imbalances in our favor: 50% is equal trade between two countries. Only a few in Europe do not meet this mark, and the rest have a massive skew in our favor.

We are stronger in higher education than China is in making cheap plastic junk.

The targeting of international students only hurts the one strong sector that we already have in the trade war. It is antithetical to the other policies of the Trump administration that are trying to bring back industry here. This industry is already here—and thriving!

Plus, unlike with many other sectors, US higher education is distributed across the country, not just on the coasts or in big cities. Universities that attract a large number of international students dot both red or blue states and urban or rural places.

These students aren’t just paying large amounts of money to the universities. They are patronizing local businesses, they are buying our products, they are injecting foreign money back into our economy. This is exactly what the Trump administration has been calling for with his tariffs. Yet, his policies are not merely ignoring our bright spot industry but actively hurting it.

What About Real Threats?

Some people might be reading this and wondering about real threats to national security, industrial spying, or a multitude of other concerns that may very well be happening right now. I have even researched these concerns in terms of the Chinese government's talent initiatives in higher education.

So I understand the US government has an intelligence argument for watching this space. I just want my government to do it intelligently. These are issues that require a scalpel, not a hammer.

Deporting international students should require real threats and not just things that the current administration doesn’t like. Real danger, real theft, or else we risk the Boy Who Cried Wolf. If it’s all a threat, then nothing is a threat.

It seems that some excuses for the revocations are just college kids being annoying. Last time I checked, it isn’t illegal to be an annoying college kid—not in America. But we actually do not even know right now because the Federal government has offered little transparency about the visa cancellations.

The kind of actions that are happening right now are antithetical to American values. They do not stand up to our principles of free speech. Their effects harm our own industry. It is simply un-American.