France Accuses Trump of Booting Space Researcher Over 'Personal Opinion'

Houston, the French have a problem. A space researcher flying into Houston for a conference was kicked out of the United States after border officers searched his phone and found him expressing an unfavorable “personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy,” French Minister of Higher Education and Research Philippe Baptiste told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.

It’s not clear exactly what the offending content was. One “diplomatic source” told Agence France-Presse that the unnamed scientist, who works for France’s National Center for Scientific Research, was accused of messages “that reflect hatred towards [President Donald] Trump and can be described as terrorism.” Another source, who placed the incident on March 9, said the scientist was threatened with an FBI investigation for “hateful and conspiratorial messages.”

Asked about the report, the FBI’s Houston office referred Reason to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which declined to discuss “specific cases” due to privacy rules but gave a general statement on policy.

“If an individual has material discovered on their electronic media that raises flags during an inspection, it can result in further analysis,” CBP spokeswoman Hilton Beckham said. “Claims that such decisions are politically motivated are completely unfounded.”

The Trump administration claims that student visas are a privilege granted at the administration’s discretion, and that foreign academics simply don’t have the same First Amendment rights as American-born scholars.

“The Secretary of State at any point can take a look and evaluate that [student] visa and decide if they want to revoke it,” Deputy Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar told NPR, adding that the administration “would have never let” in someone who said “I’m going to go and protest.”

Trump has portrayed his visa crackdown as a way to keep out terrorist agitators. His first target was Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian international relations student and a spokesman for protesters at Columbia University. The administration has also touted its expulsion of Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese doctor at Brown University who allegedly attended a Hezbollah leader’s funeral.

But the case of the French space researcher is quite different. Rather than public activism on a sensitive national security issue, the scientist was allegedly kicked out over a private discussion of domestic policy—which the authorities only discovered after searching his phone. The case was egregious enough that his own government felt compelled to speak out.

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Agence France-Presse that, although the U.S. is a “sovereign country” with control over its borders, France “deplores this situation” and stands by “freedom of expression” and “scientific cooperation.”

Baptiste took the opportunity to pitch Europe as an alternative destination for academics. “Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States,” he wrote on March 9, the same day the space scientist was reportedly kicked out. “We would naturally wish to welcome a certain number of them.”

After all, what attracts so much innovation to the United States is its nearly unlimited academic freedom. Houston may be the headquarters of one of the world’s first space programs, but it’s not the only one. Future astronauts on cutting-edge spaceflights may be calling into Toulouse instead.

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