President Trump, who once promised a revival of free expression in his inauguration speech, now leads a nation that increasingly joins the ranks of those who suppress it. The promise is hollow in the face of a new immigration policy: on June 18, the State Department announced that all applicants for F-1 visas must set their social media accounts to “public” as part of the application. Officials claim the policy strengthens national security by allowing them to screen for “hostility toward government of the United States,” but what it really does is open the door for political vetting. A single post criticizing Trump’s policy, or a meme the government deems “un-American,” could jeopardize a student’s future.
For ‘Iolani, a school with 150 years of history embracing students around the world, this policy isn’t just another headline from Washington, it’s a threat to our classmates, friends and the diversity that defines our campus.
International students at ‘Iolani expressed their fear and uncertainty in response to the policy. Tata L. ’27, the president of the Philosophic Society, said, “I have to be mentally prepared if one day I might no longer be at ‘Iolani, because a government policy could strip away my status for a speech I made online.” This chilling effect, according to history teacher and political activist Mr. John Bickel, is precisely the point: by tying speech to vague notions of national security, the administration pressures people to self-censor.
Personally, growing up in China, where the Communist Party monitors every click and keystroke, I know how fragile liberty becomes once surveillance replaces trust and inclusion. As a political blogger, I spoke out for students, petitioning personnel, the dignity of street vendors and reminded party loyalists that constructive criticism is not weakness but the foundation of a great civilization.
One quote I often lean on captures the danger of silencing dissent: “If sharp criticism completely disappears, mild criticism will become piercing. If even mild criticism is not permitted, silence will be regarded as harboring ill intent.” My experience is why I feel saddened and a need to protest, when I see firsthand how America, once a beacon and model for democracy and freedom, is turning into another place where the leaders fear people’s voices.
“In a true liberal democracy, anyone will be able to express themselves without fear of retribution”, Mr. Bickel said: “Ten years ago, we were not in a situation where the government was bullying people to not express themselves in certain ways.”
The Founding Fathers envisioned a nation built on pluralistic ideals, where freedom from government intrusion would form the basis of all that America would achieve. By requiring foreign students to expose their social media for government review, the Trump administration is trying to turn America into a wretched country that the Founding Fathers would least want to see.
In fact, this isn’t the first time America experienced a departure from the values embedded in the Constitution. When McCarthyism prevailed with its sensational fear of communism during the Cold War, citizens across art, academia, science and film saw their speech branded as subversive and lost their livelihoods. However, a president granting bureaucracy the power to assert that free speech can be censored to ensure national security, like this visa policy, is systematically concerning.
Today, this assault on free expression is not confined to immigrants alone. In September, Republican Congressman Brian Mast from Florida introduced the Department of State Policy Provisions Act containing a clause that would allow the Secretary of State to strip U.S. citizens of their passports if they are found to be knowingly providing “material support” to foreign terrorist organizations, and then withdrew the clause due to public outrage that the clause would be targeting pro-Palestine activism. Trump’s visa policy and the bill are not outliers, but part of a broader hostility toward civil liberties and immigrants that has defined his political style for years.
In April, immigration agents went so far as to unlawfully deport Kilmar Ábrego García, a lawful U.S. resident, to El Salvador, where he was promptly imprisoned, even after a federal judge had ordered the government to stop. Due process, it seems, is optional when the administration decides someone’s existence is unnecessary.
And if that weren’t enough, the American Broadcast Company(ABC) suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live after Trump’s Federal Communications Commission director threatened regulatory retaliation for his critical jokes about Charlie Kirk’s death—though the show was later reinstated after public backlash—a reminder that even late-night comedy isn’t safe from the long arm of political vengeance.
Given this record, it should come as no surprise that a censorship policy targeting foreign students would follow. One must be vigilant, however, toward this pattern of authoritarianism and its potential to spread. Mr. Bickel leaves a clearer message to students in ‘Iolani: “If you start picking on the unpopular minorities–in the case of America today: immigrants–it threatens everybody’s rights. So everybody should be protesting against the Trump administration’s policies that target immigrants, even if you’re not an immigrant. Because if they can take away the immigrant rights, they can take away your rights.” Therefore, ‘Iolani students, immigrant or not, should care because an attack on one group’s freedom always spreads to others, because the health of our democracy depends on young people refusing to obey injustice
