The Daily Populous Thursday March 20th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by newrepublic.com and submitted by revel8r

The researcher’s phone and computer were allegedly confiscated, and he was sent back to Europe the next day. The news prompted the attention of the French government, which expressed alarm.

“I was told with concern that a French researcher, on a mission for the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), who was going to a conference near Houston, was banned from entering the US before being expelled,” said France’s Minister of Higher Education and Research Philippe Baptiste, in a statement Wednesday. “This would have been taken by the US authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friendly relations in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy.”

According to one source cited by Agence France-Presse, CBP said that the French researcher expressed “hate and conspiracy messages,” prompting an FBI investigation, only for the charges to be dropped later. Another source said the scientist was banned due to messages “that can be described as terrorism.”

corrector300 on March 20th, 2025 at 00:40 UTC »

Horrifying

> The French newspaper Le Monde reports that on March 9, a space researcher was randomly selected upon arrival in Houston for a search, and CBP found messages criticizing the Trump administration’s treatment of scientists, which, according to the agency, “conveyed hatred of Trump & could be qualified as terrorism.”

I guess around half of america are terrorists now, according to whoever said that.

Narrow-Win1256 on March 19th, 2025 at 22:32 UTC »

Good thing he got to back to France and not deported to a concentration camp.

TranquilSeaOtter on March 19th, 2025 at 22:29 UTC »

So much for freedom of speech.