While others have pointed out his pro-Hamas rhetoric, I would also point out that we don't actually know why he was detained. The Guardian is just citing speculation from an advocacy group friendly to him. The headline is technically accurate, but it could just as well read "journalist detained after eating cheerios for breakfast".
(ICE's lack of transparency is a valid, but separate, concern, and The Guardian could have at least attempted to contact them before publishing speculation.)
> While others have pointed out his pro-Hamas rhetoric
I refuse to accept these accusations by word-of-mouth. The White House is currently accusing former presidents of "pro-Hamas rhetoric" (which they never expressed).
It would seem to me that "pro-Hamas" is a meaningless cudgel used by the ruling party to justify mistreatment of those who oppose Israel.
It's not word-of-mouth, you can see his remarks about Hamas' Oct 7 massacres for yourself: "celebrate the victory", "how many of you felt the euphoria", etc.
That’s crazytalk. It sounds like something Pam Bondi would say but the other way around. If you celebrate a clear terrorist attack on civilians, you don’t have to be saying the name Voldemort (Hamas) out loud for everyone to see who you are.
How do we define a terrorist attack? Do we defer to the ICC, the ICJ, the US, the Knesset or the PLO?
Because if we apply that logic across the board, then the United States and Israel are both objectively complicit in internationally illegal war crimes. Any citizens that promote their legitimacy is trying to undermine global order, obstruct legitimate democracy and prevent criminal justice for organized terrorism.
Both sides have their faults, but I'm not willing to indict Hamdi for the same reason I don't accuse US citizens of being responsible for Abu Ghraib. It's not justice, just pugilism.
I agree with you on this 100%. Israel and the US are complicit in war crimes, especially of late. But I won’t believe for a second he wasn’t celebrating Hamas. I don’t want to associate with him in any way except defending his right to free speech.
> But I won’t believe for a second he wasn’t celebrating Hamas.
That's fine. But we can both agree that bigotry is not evidence of a crime. If we expanded this "I won't believe for a second" logic further, any number of Americans could be arrested for any reason. It's a slippery slope that you are making more slippery by making immaterial correlations. What you assume is not the same as actual rhetoric.
So yes, that necessarily includes when some alphabet soup agency makes a big show of having some mid-tier guy's door kicked in at 6am by a bunch of fed-cops for violating some law that HN loves.
You cannot quote a single part of the article you listed where he argues in-favor of Hamas, because he does not mention them at all. You are casting aspersions that do not exist, much in the way the White House has to resort to defaming former presidents instead of setting a morally-consistent example.
That's as ridiculous as claiming that any opinion about Baruch Goldstein is an opinion about Israel by-extension, whether or not his nationality is mentioned.
You're making a bad-faith extrapolation that most people know is desperate. If it was applied universally, you'd be crying foul too.
> I would also point out that we don't actually know why he was detained
That's always the way it works with secret police. The idea of due process of law and norm following is (1) expressly designed to provide assurances in cases like this and (2) being deliberately degraded and evaded by ICE and DHS at all levels.
Trying to make the story actually about bland journalism criticism is doing their jobs for them. To borrow your framing: your critique is technically accurate, but...
Right, which is why I called you out for bringing it up. Make your bland criticism of the Guardian in a journalism forum.
If the standard for criticizing clear ICE overreach (and yes, an unexplained detainment is very clear overreach for a department who are statutorily just supposed to be checking visas) becomes "You have to be able to prove that ICE was wrong before saying anything", then that simply makes them the secret police.
My point isn't really "no speculation is allowed", but that we should be honest about the assumptions we're making. The Guardian headline that kicked off this thread uses misleading wording to hide the assumption being made. It's fine to criticize ICE based on informed speculation if we're honest about it.
And my point, again, is that focusing on this particular criticism[1] seems like a transparent attempt on your part to deflect from the very serious story (ICE transparently harrassing "enemy" journalists without apparent cause) because, hey, maybe he failed to declare an agricultural product in his luggage. We don't know, amiright?!
It just doesn't seem to be a good faith discussion of the situation, and in particular it makes your position seem decidedly pro-secret-police.
[1] Which amounts, basically, to "Mildly sensationalist mid-tier news outfit used a sensational headline". It's boring.
I think the appropriate reaction would be suspicion, not jumping to assumptions. Speculation can be okay too, but we should be forthright about it, whereas The Guardian headline above tries to misleadingly pass off speculation as fact.
>... I mean it absolutely does. What on earth are you _supposed_ to do? Give the unaccountable secret police the benefit of the doubt?
Exactly. Even if this guy holds beliefs that aren't aligned with those of the US government, so what? That is not a reason to detain or refuse entry to a place that's supposed to embrace freedom of expression and of the press.
This is blatantly anti-democratic (small 'd'), capricious and just one more example of the current administration's attempts to destroy a free and open society.
Yet here you guys (@ajroos, @dlubarov, etc.) arguing about why the US government is abandoning the rule of law and trying to normalize authoritarianism and bad-faith governance. It doesn't matter why. It's wrong and evil on its face.
Do you have some primary sources for the statement that he is a jihadi? Do you have any primary source for the statement that he cheered ethnic cleansing?
I've been looking, but all I find is that:
> Mr Hamdi has previously denied accusations that he celebrated October 7, instead claiming he was "illustrating the international recognition that efforts to normalise relations in the Middle East must include Palestinian people."
> He told the National Post: "The October 7 events underscore the failure of any approach that seeks normalisation at the expense of the Palestinian people."
I actually can't find any public statements of him saying this.
It's referenced in "Times of Israel" [1] that, "According to MEMRI, in December 2023, Hamdi called to “celebrate the victory” of October 7 and asked his audience “how many of you felt euphoria” when they heard of the Hamas onslaught in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages."
However, their hyperlink in the word "called" points to a MEMRI report that requires a request to view [2]. Do you happen to have any easily-accessible, non-walled content or reporting of Hamdi saying those things?
> It's as if all pro-Israel bots and fan accounts are reading the exact same guide.
Historically, many pro-Israel talking point guides/handbooks have been created and used, yes [1][2][3][4]. It would thus be unreasonable to assume that they are not currently being coordinated.
Some journalists's job is to risk their life going to dangerous places. Going to the US is not yet being a war reporter but it's more risky than before.
> California has not declared war on Texas, but the states are engaged in a "redistricting war," a political struggle over drawing new congressional maps. This "war" is a symbolic conflict between the states' differing political parties and aims to gain an advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives, with California attempting to counterbalance Texas's Republican-drawn map.
If numerous publications are referring to your country having a war, then it might as well be ok for a lay-person to use the word.
It was never fun to travel to the US, and the border agents have always been rude, unprofessional and arbitrary. But it seems like it has gotten much worse, and there is no way I'm traveling to the US these days.
Whilst I don't support any of ICE's efforts but ... CAIR and this journalist complain about this on the grounds of free speech? Are these people serious?
Has anyone thought about their position for 5 seconds? There is NO islamic country with a right to free speech. Zero. Not even countries like Morocco or Turkey have anything remotely like free speech, and they're the most open Islamic countries imaginable. There are dozens of islamic countries with death penalties for criticism of islam or government (and even Morocco and Turkey have prison sentences for that). CAIR is representing these countries' interests in the US, and they are arguing for free speech protection ... in the US. Not in the over 200 countries where muslims use state violence to control speech. In the US. They are making zero efforts to protect free speech anywhere else.
Obviously no sane person can reasonably consider these people to be either engaging in free speech or protecting free speech, can they?
CAIR is an American organization established to protect the rights of Muslims in America. The people who work at this organization are, presumably, Americans by and large. So why would an American civil rights group divert its limited resources to something squarely outside its scope, especially when such advocacy would require entirely different, non-overlapping expertise in Moroccan/Turkish/whatever law?
They have a funny way of showing it. Almost all those people will be immigrants, either themselves, or they'll at the very least have family living in muslim countries. Family who'll get arrested when they're protesting their governments or religion.
Yet they really care about free speech ... in America. THAT is where the free speech problem is according to them. Am I really the only one having trouble believing that this is a genuine attitude? Oh and they only defend their version of free speech, with limits on "hate speech" (but not Sami Hamdi's kind of hate speech of course), limits on criticism of religion, and limits on criticizing middle eastern governments. You know, THAT kind of free speech. CAIR, in the US, is really arguing for limits on free speech, "against hate speech", against "islamophobia", against criticism of middle eastern governments, you know limits on the very thing free speech was created for (ie. to protect all criticism of religion and governments, especially foreign ones, but all governments, including the US one)
And who do they invite? Sami Hamdi.
Please go read his twitter stream and tell me if you believe people who hire this guy have any problem with hate speech. Oh and maybe it's just one issue, so filter out the Gaza conflict, and ... nope still hate speech, mostly about the UK. Okay, filter out the UK too. He's defending people who went "on a Jew hunt" in the Netherlands ... This guy is not a moderate in any way shape or form.
I'm sure he'll have made 5 new posts by the time this is read and they'll be another 5 posts inciting at the very least more hatred of Israeli. You may hate Trump, but let's be blunt here: this guy is thankfully powerless, but is easily a LOT worse than Trump.
If you take CAIR's attitude at face value, limits on free speech against hate speech, they'd help deport Sami Hamdi. But clearly this kind of hate speech they don't just want to allow, but protect and nurture.
What I mean is, CAIR really make themselves look really bad here. Really, really, really bad.
> if someone is seen promoting Hamas and celebrating what happened on Dec 7th, their visa should be removed.
I, too, love taking someones papers and removing them from the country over their speech. I cheer on the army of government agents scanning social media for wrongthink so that we can rid the country of anti-Israel sentiment.
Subversion or otherwise working against the national interest of a country you are in as a non-citizen is generally a bad idea. Even with a rather generous freedom of speech in the culture.
Saying you hate $NATION and that you want it destroyed is definitely saying you don't want to be there and it's probably a good idea not to have you there.
No one is arguing about the practicality of speaking out under this regime or that it'd be unwise to do so in other countries as a guest.
What is being argued is that the government doing this goes against our values as Americans. It's interesting to observe the same side (right-wingers, libertarians) hold water for these actions while they were painting social media bans as censorship and a violation of their First Amendment rights.
Maybe you didn't do that, but your comment certainly reads like a "well, technically their visa can be revoked" argument which is true, but misses the spirit of the First Amendment.
EDIT: there might be legal issues too depending on the reason for revocation but I'm not a legal expert. Most things in our constitution apply to people and not just citizens so someone visiting the US also has free speech rights.
If someone came into my home, told me they hate me, my way of life, want me dead and starts setting fires in my living room, I'm going to kick them out. It's different if their name is on the lease.
It also depends on the severity of what someone is doing... there's a difference between speech and action. Saying you disagree with the administration, vs taking hostages and seizing part of a school are different things. Saying you would like to see amnesty for those who entered illegally is different than defrauding the govt, flaunting it on social media and trying to ram a car into a federal agent.
Commiting acts of violence, making threats, committing fraud, and ramming federal agents are already against the law and not protected speech. Saying that you think October 7th was good is certainly distasteful but not any of those things mentioned above.
> If someone came into my home, told me they hate me, my way of life, want me dead and starts setting fires in my living room
This analogy doesn't hold up because it's your house, of course you have the right to keep whatever company you like. Same for social media companies. You're not the government.
The government IS the people, IE it's citizens... immigrants are guests in the nation in the analogy, illegal immigrants broke in through the window in the middle of the night.
It's called an analogy. As a citizen, this nation IS my home.
Strictly speaking, there's nothing in that constitution that says "the president shall not cancel someone's building permit after he's started building" or "the president shall not cancel someone's travel permit after he's started travelling" or anything like that.
"The president shall not cancel anyone's health insurance while they're in an ambulance on the way to hospital". The constitution does not say that either. It doesn't go into that level of detail.
It doesn't even say that when the government issues a permit (a building permit, visa to travel, a driving license, whatever) then the president can't revoke it on a whim.
I think most people would want government to be trustworthy, reliable etc., though. If you get a license to operate a business or permission to return home from a conference, you should be able to rely on having that.
it's important to remember that having a right does not mean having the right to use that right wrong. you have to use your rights right, or the government will step in and right the wrong of you wrongly exercising rights with its right to wrong you. this way our rights are preserved equally: i have the right to say what I want, and you have that very same right (the right to say what i want). It's only fair. Hell, it's only right.
when did the state of free speech rights in majority muslim nations come up? this seems to be an entirely different debate that you'd like to have, but the rest of us are talking about the erosion of free speech in america by an openly authoritarian government that has been clear that incorrect opinions will be punished and correct opinions will be rewarded. this is about an american organization in america having their speech suppressed by america.
I most align with libertarian ideals. However, I lived in China full time for 10 years and traveled to many different countries too. I can’t think of even one place I’ve visited where it would have been risk-free to openly criticize the current government leadership or their laws and culture, while I was a guest there.
That's one of the things that (previously, or hypothetically, take your pick) makes America great.
That's why this shift is so frustrating and disappointing to so many Americans. It would be like if the Vatican became protestant, or the UK suddenly stopped drinking tea.
Would you go into someone's home, tell them you hate them, want them dead and start setting fires in their living room then be surprised when they kick you out?
If I moved in with roommates and they immediately held a vote deciding that it's actually my job to do all the chores and that if I don't they're going to throw me out and actually I don't even deserve to be there so I better watch it, in the time between that happening and me securing a new residence, I'd probably tell them to eat shit and that their behavior is insane.
If another resident is constantly talking shit about all the rest and saying he thinks they should be shot and go fuck themselves and their moms should die etc etc etc but they immediately call the police on me for telling them to fuck off, saying they felt "threatened" and "unsafe" just because I was the most recent one to move in, I'd also probably say "What the fuck?" about the double standard.
I think the problem here is that it's not black and white like that, it's a bunch of not great shades of gray.
It's like having a bunch of frat bros getting rowdy at a party while the host's wife is having a mental breakdown and waving a gun around. Like the frat bro's aren't great and probably wouldn't be getting that rowdy but are they really what's ruining the vibe?
We have freedom of speech in the U.S., it's mostly that simple to start with. That said, if you are not a citizen, then speaking out against the government of your host country is generally a bad idea regardless of where you are. Coming into the US on a VISA comes with certain restrictions and understandings. Even as a permanent resident, your privileges i.e. access can be revoked.
This isn't to say you can't or shouldn't speak out against anything only that when you participate in political activism, especially when accompanying those decrying a hatred or wishing destruction of the nation you are in, there can and often will be negative repercussions.
On the global scale, the U.S. is one of the less restrictive nations on this issue. Many countries will absolutely block you at the border, imprison you for years then deport you.
As to CAIR, there are a lot of groups in the US that I think are antithetical to a free society as a whole. If it were up to me, the communist groups, antifa, neo-nazi orgs, CAIR and several other groups wouldn't exist in the US in the first place. As it stands, we have freedom of speech and that protects speech you don't like... speech you agree with doesn't need protecting. I'm not a free speech absolutist, but far more in favor of the open discussion than not, the light of day is the best disinfectant. This does not include violent acts, terrorism, or the advocation thereof.
> That said, if you are not a citizen, then speaking out against the government of your host country is generally a bad idea regardless of where you are.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/26/ice-detains-...