Defending the Free Trade in Ideas

American Civil Liberties Union (11/10/2005)

The U.S. government appears to be denying visas to non-citizens whose politics the government dislikes. This practice—"ideological exclusion"—has recently prevented visits from Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss intellectual widely regarded as a leading scholar of the Muslim world, and Dora María Telléz, who played a prominent role in the Nicaraguan revolution that toppled the Somoza regime. Using the immigration laws, including some amended by the Patriot Act, the government is keeping U.S. citizens and residents from meeting with these and other prominent critics of U.S. government policies and from hearing ideas that the U.S. government disfavors.

In March 2005, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain records about the government's use of immigration laws to exclude individuals from the country because of their political views, political associations, or the content of their speech. In November 2005, after seven months of near silence from the agencies, the ACLU filed a lawsuit demanding the government release records about ideological exclusion. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the ACLU, the American Association of University Professors, and the PEN American Center.

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