The Bush Administration barred Swiss academic Tariq Ramadan from the United States in 2004. He had been hired for a position at the University of Notre Dame.
Though Cold War-era laws allowing immigration authorities to deny visitors entry on the basis of their beliefs were repealed by Congress in 1990, the PATRIOT Act of 2001 now gives the government many of the same powers. Thus, Ramadan was barred from the United States after it was argued that he contributed to a Swiss charity, which in turn contributed to Hamas.
At the time of his contribution, the Treasury Department did not consider the charity a terrorist organization, posing the difficult question: What actions should disqualify foreigners from entering the United States? Should Ramadan be excluded for making a lawful contribution to a group that was only later deemed a terrorist organization?
Of course, the government has a serious responsibility to protect Americans from potentially violent foreigners. While it's true that academics are generally more interested in ideas than bombs – assuming that people with a high level of education will not engage in terrorism – this could seriously compromise national security.
It's worth remembering that many of the terrorists who committed the atrocities on 9/11 had completed higher education. Similarly, a Ph.D. didn't deter Ted Kaczynski – the Unabomber – from his nearly 20-year violence spree.
Yet, in Ramadan's case, there is little concrete evidence that he was a serious threat to Americans. He may have been unaware of the Swiss charity's connections to Hamas. And in the years leading up to 2004, he had peacefully visited the United States dozens of times.
Proponents of Mr. Ramadan's admission to the United States, including the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that President Obama should reverse Bush's policy of barring foreigners with disagreeable views from the United States. If he were allowed into the United States, as the argument goes, he and other academics would contribute to the free discussion of ideas and expose Americans to seldom heard viewpoints.
Unfortunately, an attorney for the Obama administration said Tuesday he would continue to use Bush's arguments for barring Ramadan from entering the United States.
We believe that ideology should never be the basis for exclusion from the United States. By listening to people with different beliefs from ours, we reduce the tension our differences may cause.
And in retrospect, we only look silly for excluding those with whom we don't agree. During the Cold War, writers and Nobel Literature laureates Gabriel García Márquez, Pablo Neruda and Doris Lessing were all banned. Today, the validity of their intellectual positions and their cultural importance is virtually indisputable, even by those who may not agree with them.
The Obama administration's decision to continue invoking the PATRIOT Act to exclude foreign visitors, especially academics, on the basis of their beliefs should disappoint all Americans. As history has shown, it is a shortsighted basis for immigration policy.