State Department: Detaining People For Social Media Activity Is ‘Paranoid’ And Sign Of An ‘Illegitimate Regime’ (Unless We Do It)

Failures

from the hypocrisy-as-a-service dept

You really can’t make this stuff up.

On Friday, the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs posted to Twitter/X condemning Nicaragua’s government for—and I quote—”detaining Nicaraguans for liking posts online,” calling it evidence of “how paranoid the illegitimate Murillo and Ortega regime is.” The Bureau demanded “the unconditional release of all political prisoners” and declared that “freedom means ending the regime’s cycle of repression.”

Stirring stuff. Very pro-free-expression. One tiny problem: the very same day, a federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the US government doing… essentially the same thing. Hat tip to the excellent Chris Geidner from Lawdork for calling out the contrast on Bluesky.

The lawsuit, brought by Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation along with two anonymous noncitizen students, challenges the government’s practice of revoking visas and initiating deportation proceedings against people lawfully present in the United States based on their speech—including, notably, their social media activity. As we’ve covered here at Techdirt, the State Department has made reviewing social media profiles a regular part of the visa process, and has been actively targeting people for their online expression.

The court’s ruling lays out in pretty damning detail just how aggressively the government has been going after people for their protected speech. From the order:

In March 2025, DHS and ICE began aggressively targeting lawfully present noncitizens for protected speech, particularly at universities. Plaintiffs point to the arrests of Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Mohsen Mahdawi as emblematic of the Government’s enforcement strategy.

And what exactly did these individuals do that warranted arrest, detention, and deportation proceedings? Let’s see:

Ms. Öztürk is a PhD student at Tufts University who is lawfully present in the United States on an F-1 student visa. Ms. Öztürk co-authored an opinion article in the Tufts student newspaper that criticized the university’s refusal to adopt several resolutions approved by the undergraduate student senate urging the University to, among other things, recognize a genocide in Gaza and divest from Israeli companies… On March 25, 2025, six plain-clothes federal officers surrounded Ms. Öztürk on the street outside her home, detained her, and transported her to a Louisiana immigration jail.

She wrote an op-ed in a student newspaper. A DHS spokesperson claimed her editorial “glorified and supported terrorists.” It did not. It criticized the university’s policies, and did nothing to glorify or support “terrorists.”

The court also details what government officials have been saying publicly about this enforcement strategy.

DHS posted on Twitter that anyone who thinks they can “hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-American and anti-Semitic violence and terrorism—think again.” Stephen Miller bragged that “The State Department has revoked tens of thousands of visas, and they’re just getting started on tens of thousands more.” The US government isn’t hiding the fact that they’re combing US social media to figure out who to detain.

One of the plaintiffs—Jane Doe—is on the Canary Mission website, a private list of people which MAGA folks claim are anti-Israel and which the government has apparently been using as a shopping list for who to kidnap and deport. From the ruling:

Jane Doe was listed on the Canary Mission website, which is an anonymously and privately run website that publishes personal information of individuals and organizations that the Canary Mission personally deems “anti-Israel.” In their motion and during the hearing, the Government explained that DHS had asked ICE to generate “reports” for the State Department on individuals listed on the Canary Mission website to aid in decision-making about visa revocations. Notably, before the Government brought enforcement actions against them, Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Mohsen Mahdawi all had profiles published about them on the Canary Mission website.

The US government is actively monitoring people’s social media, revoking visas over protected speech, and using an anonymous website that doxxes pro-Palestinian activists as a source for enforcement targets.

And then the State Department has the audacity to criticize Nicaragua for “detaining Nicaraguans for liking posts online.”

Remember, the State Department’s tweet said that this kind of behavior shows “how paranoid and illegitimate” the regime is. We agree.

The hypocrisy is coming so fast it’s hard to keep up, but this one deserves special mention because the State Department is literally condemning other countries for the exact policy it’s implementing, and getting called out about it in court.

Nicaragua is paranoid and illegitimate for targeting social media activity, but when the US does it, we’re… protecting national security? Fighting antisemitism? The framing changes but the underlying action is the same: using the power of the state to punish people for their online expression.

The court, for its part, found that the plaintiffs’ fears of enforcement were entirely reasonable given the government’s very public campaign of targeting people for their speech:

Jane Doe and John Doe have sufficiently alleged that their behavior falls into the crosshairs of the Government’s stated enforcement priorities. The Government has also not disavowed plans to continue invoking the Revocation and Deportation Provisions.

In other words: the government isn’t even pretending it won’t keep doing this. And yet somehow it’s Nicaragua that needs to be lectured about freedom?

Maybe someone at the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs should walk down the hall and have a chat with their colleagues about what “freedom means ending the regime’s cycle of repression” actually looks like in practice. Because right now, the State Department’s position appears to be: targeting people for their social media activity is evidence of a paranoid, illegitimate regime—unless we’re the ones doing it.

Filed Under: illegitimate regime, marco rubio, nicaragua, paranoia, social media, state department, trump administration, visas