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Technically incorrect, Supreme Court precedent has held that aliens are entitled to lesser First Amendment protections while seeking to enter the United States. You could be on US Soil (i.e. entering customs at an airport) and those protections don't apply.

The person in question said he was in Geneva when he received the email from Google. Therefore is a non-US citizen residing outside the country entitled to 1A protections for something they said or did while in the US? I'm not expressing an opinion but I wouldn't take that statement as legal advice.

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Yes, someone in customs at an airport can be treated as functionally “at the border” with reduced protections.

But you are conflating seeking entry with being present inside the country. That’s the legal line, and the Supreme Court has stated it clearly. “once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause applies to all ‘persons’ within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.” [0]

As for the First Amendment specifically the Supreme court has reversed the deportation order of an Australian labor activist due to alleged Communist Party affiliation, concluding that “freedom of speech and of the press is accorded aliens residing in this country” [1]

The Geneva detail doesn’t apply. He was on US soil as a lawful visa holder when he attended the protest. It’s a question of where he was when the government action targeted his protected expression not where he was when Google emailed him.

His departure doesn’t retroactively strip the constitutional protections that applied when the conduct occurred.

[0] https://law.onecle.com/ussc/533/533us693.html

[1] Bridges v. Wixon https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/aliens/

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Does the government need a reason to revoke a persons visa? First amendment or not, that is the real question. If no reason is needed then whether the first amendment applies or not is moot.

There seems to be broad discretion that the government has in revoking visas.

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> administrative subpoenas frequently include non disclosure orders

Which Google definitely knows are not enforceable.

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Here’s a video of what this guy was involved in (to my best knowledge):

https://statements.cornell.edu/2024/20241019-career-fair-dis...

I’m a First Amendment absolutist and AFAIK foreign students can protest, but this video shows to me it probably crosses the line into something else. Exactly what, I have no opinion.

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Yeah, masks and intentionally antagonizing police doesn't scream peaceful protest
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> ... it’s not allowed to use immigration machinery as a pretext to punish political expression. That’s exactly what they are doing.

I agree: this is exactly what the administration is doing.

> I’m generally receptive to point the finger at Google’s intentions but in their defense, administrative subpoenas frequently include non disclosure orders.

Except immigration aren't allowed to put gag orders on administrative subpoenas [1]:

> First, any gag order in these subpoenas has no legal effect; you are free to publicize them and inform the target of the subpoena.

and

> The agency’s administrative subpoena power is limited, but ICE often uses the subpoenas to obtain more assistance than is legally required

This is the key problem. Companies like Google aren't making government agencies go to court to get a subpoena, they're not resisting that subpoena, they're not informing targets when they're legally allowed to and they're giving agencies more assistance than is legally required.

I don't think it's asking a lot to expect any platform to only provide the minimum legally required cooperation.

[1]: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites...

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