[meijer]

The story can also be considered on-topic because it shows how the USA is increasingly becoming a bad place to start a business.

When foreign talent can be snatched by masked secret police at any time and the rule of law is increasingly ignored, it hardly creates a favorable business environment.

[AlecSchueler]

In the US? Wasn't the whole thing that you could say what you wanted without fear in the US?

I understand that people say these things about Saudi Arabië and China and wherever else, but all my life the selling point of the US has been that it's the land of the free.

Please tear down the Statue of Liberty because it's an absolute embarrassment at this point. It's like the D in DPRK now.

[acdha]

Immigrants still have many constitutional rights - they’re rushing people out of the country to avoid court cases they know they’ll lose – but even if that wasn’t true, in a constitutional democracy that has to follow a legal process.

One of the big questions is how you define “activism”. She appears to have been targeted for supporting democratic initiatives by her fellow students based on the belief that killing civilians is wrong. Once you’re at that point, people could get in trouble for many innocuous beliefs, which suggests that people should hesitate to come here if anything they build can be taken away by Dear Leader without warning or legal process.

[meijer]

Better yet: don't be a "guest" in the USA.

[matsemann]

Do you seriously believe the punishment here matches the "crime" of writing an article? I don't even see the problem with it. You want people to come and better your country, or do you want them to be docile slaves? And who even decides what counts as activism? If I write an article about wanting my campus to serve better food, should I be deported?

But you're anyways missing the point: If you can't be yourself, stand up for your values and live freely, you will not move to a country. This is the US now, and because of that the US will lose out on great talent, people will be apprehensive of starting businesses, study or otherwise in the US.

[jasonm23]

Right, in the land of the "Free"... how about you just go get your stooge uniform and start asking people for their papers.

[lawn]

Scary stuff.

This is common knowledge when you visit authoritarian regimes, such as North Korea or Russia, but it's completely fine when you visit well developed democracies.

The US can no longer be considered as such, and you're fine with that?

[tvaughan]

What’s political activism?