“Alistair Kitchen’s deportation is a clear case of retaliation in connection with his reporting, and such action sends a chilling message to journalists,” said one press freedom defender.
Kitchen said that CBP agents “were waiting for me when I got off the plane,” and although he “had cleaned up my online presence expecting ad hoc digital sweeps,” he “was not prepared for their sophistication.”
“If you are deleting social media 48 hours before your flight to the U.S., it is already too late,” he stressed.
Kitchen wrote that the agents “just came out and said it: ‘We both know why you’ve been detained…it’s because of what you wrote about the protests at Columbia,’” he recounted.
They’re not even trying to hide that it’s political persecution, or that they are surveilling everyone on social media and storing it away. It’s probably too late for most of us to hide our political views from the US authorities, and evidently they will persecute those who hold the wrong views.
It’s a clear message. If the government has made it clear that you’re not welcome, why would you put yourself at a real life and death risk to be here?
And besides, if you don’t like the USA, why come here at all?
Some people think fascism is worth resisting, even if it doesn’t directly threaten their mother.
I.e. to fight fascism.
Trump’s fascism isn’t just a local threat, it’s a global one, so we are all affected and we all need to fight against this.
It’s also his job so I imagine it’s easier to investigate for journalism about the states in the states than overseas
The government has made it clear that queer people like me aren’t welcome, and I was fucking born and raised here, and by god I’m gonna die here. These fascist scumbags can go to hell.
