I fear visiting Britain to promote my book, when speaking freely can get you in trouble
So far, so scary.
It seems the woman went to the US based on her marriage to an American. They divorced before she adjusted her status to permanent resident. When she tried to get back into the US from a trip to Canada, she and her son were detained by US Customs and Border Protection.
She reportedly applied to re-open her green-card application on the grounds that she was allegedly a survivor of domestic abuse. She may or may not have a case. But the bottom line is that this is a complicated immigration case that will work itself out in due course, not an innocent tourist mum being blocked by the American jackboots of Leftist imagination.
A few weeks ago, I was invited on a podcast in New Zealand. The other guests were Stephen Young, a professor at Otago University whose 'areas of research involve the intersection of Indigenous peoples … drawing from critical and social theories,' and Zane Wedding, 'an activist who's been involved in recent pro-Gaza rallies'.
They appeared to want me as a proxy pinata for President Trump's highly successful (though controversial) policies to control the southern border and deport aliens here illegally.
The podcast's premise was that Kiwi academics were being hassled at US airports. 'A number of our universities are now advising academics to clean their social media profiles, travel with burner phones, and reconsider attending US conferences altogether,' they said. Their implication was that research would grind to a halt, tourism would dry out, and sundry other disasters would result from the alleged border crackdown.
But when I researched the claims, practically nothing came up.
Yes, a May 2025 article alarmingly said 'NZ travellers warned of increased detention risk at US border', and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade's travel advice for the United States is set at level 2, 'exercise increased caution'.
But the Ministry said that in the year to that point, '24 New Zealand passport holders have sought our assistance because they have experienced immigration difficulties in the US … Typically, we would see 14-25 cases per year.' No crisis there. Indeed, a government spokeswoman said that 169,000 New Zealanders had travelled to the US in the year to March 2025 – up from 168,000 for the same period a year earlier.
The global Left is panicking about the US president or secretary of state using powers in immigration law to deny visas or entry to foreigners who endorse or espouse terrorism or undermine our national security or foreign policy. They seem to believe that the United States, uniquely among nations, is obliged to admit foreigners who rail against our system of government and capitalism, and advocate for radical foreign political causes.
We don't. We have rules which visitors are asked to respect, or else they're not welcome.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Anglosphere is policing speech not just about politics, but about statistical and biological truth. I worry more about free speech there than here.
Armed with facts, I was easily able to counter the narrative that the US was a threat to free speech. In fact, I told the podcast hosts that I was more afraid of speaking in New Zealand – or Australia, Canada, and Great Britain, the rest of the 'Five Eyes' of English-speaking countries that share intelligence data.
To promote my new book, The Ten Woke Commandments (You Must Not Obey), I will be speaking in the US and Europe. In the United States, our First Amendment protects my free speech. I'll go to the Five Eyes countries if invited, but with trepidation, because several of the woke commandments I urge readers to reject in the book appear to have become state-sanctioned truth in some of these countries. Deviation from that dogma, or adherence to factual truth that threatens some sub-group's subjective sense of safety, can result in cancellation, ostracisation – or, in some cases, legal trouble.
In Australia, the case of Tickle v Giggle grinds on. It boils down to a website for women being sued by a biological male who wants access to the site. Commenting on the case might be risky – 'transgender vilification', defined as 'a public act that could incite hatred, serious contempt or severe ridicule towards people who are transgender', is against the law in New South Wales. Kirralie Smith, head of the Australian group Binary, says she's had 'vilification' complaints against her 'for calling male soccer players 'male''.
In my book, I discuss gender ideology in two chapters. I state the fact (not opinion) that mankind is a sexually dimorphous species with only two sexes. If one bloke in Scotland finds it offensive, could that be 'stirring up hatred' – an offence under their Hate Crime and Public Order Act? I'd hope not, but the fact the question even has to be asked is chilling to free expression.
In the chapter titled 'You Will be 'Woke' to Imaginary Oppression', I use hard data to debunk myths about crime – who are the victims, and who are the perpetrators.
In Britain, a data point in the debate about migration is the rate of crime by foreign compared to UK-born men. Whatever the true statistics are, they might cause someone offence – but that does not make them false. Facts are facts. Their purpose is not to vilify, but to inform policy.
The Free Speech Union is fighting to protect ordinary Britons who state factual truths or express their opinions. The British Government, meanwhile, seems determined to crack down on negative views of mass migration if they are injudiciously expressed.
In Canada, former PM Justin Trudeau's government suppressed free speech over Covid mandates and advocated an Online Harms Act that would create a new hate-crime offence with a maximum sentence of life in prison. His Liberal Party successor, Mark Carney, seems little better.
And in New Zealand, they have a Human Rights Act under which using 'words which are threatening, abusive, or insulting' or 'inciting racial disharmony' are offences. Such laws naturally chill free speech, because the definitions and lines are rarely clear, absent court cases of which no one wants to be the guinea pig. The New Zealand Law Commission has been looking at extending the categories protected under the Human Rights Act to 'people who are transgender, people who are non-binary and people who have an innate variation of sex characteristics'.
But while people with disorders of sexual development indubitably exist, the concepts of 'transgender' or 'non-binary' require a belief – that humans have a 'gender' which sometimes doesn't match their biological sex, and that human beings can exist without being of either sex. These are convictions of faith, not facts that can be proven or disproven empirically.
Despite the panic from the Anglophone Left, the home of free speech remains the United States. It's in the rest of the ex-British Empire where it is in jeopardy.
Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center and author of The Ten Woke Commandments (You Must Not Obey) from Academica Books
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Judge denies Trump administration request to end a policy protecting immigrant children in custody
A federal judge ruled Friday to deny the Trump administration's request to end a policy in place for nearly three decades that is meant to protect immigrant children in federal custody. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles issued her ruling a week after holding a hearing with the federal government and legal advocates representing immigrant children in custody. Gee called last week's hearing 'déjà vu' after reminding the court of the federal government's attempt to terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement in 2019 under the first Trump administration. She repeated the sentiment in Friday's order. 'There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law. The Court therefore could deny Defendants' motion on that basis alone," Gee wrote, referring to the government's appeal to a law they believed kept the court from enforcing the agreement. In the most recent attempt, the government argued they made substantial changes since the agreement was formalized in 1997, creating standards and policies governing the custody of immigrant children that conform to legislation and the agreement. Gee acknowledged that the government made some improved conditions of confinement, but wrote, 'These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical.' Attorneys representing the federal government told the court the agreement gets in the way of their efforts to expand detention space for families, even though Trump's tax and spending bill provided billions to build new immigration facilities. Tiberius Davis, one of the government attorneys, said the bill gives the government authority to hold families in detention indefinitely. 'But currently under the Flores Settlement Agreement, that's essentially void,' he said last week. The Flores agreement, named for a teenage plaintiff, was the result of over a decade of litigation between attorneys representing the rights of migrant children and the U.S. government over widespread allegations of mistreatment in the 1980s. The agreement set standards for how licensed shelters must provide food, water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature control and ventilation. It also limited how long U.S. Customs and Border Protection could detain child immigrants to 72 hours. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services then takes custody of the children. The Biden administration successfully pushed to partially end the agreement last year. Gee ruled that special court supervision may end when HHS takes custody, but she carved out exceptions for certain types of facilities for children with more acute needs. In arguing against the Trump administration's effort to completely end the agreement, advocates said the government was holding children beyond the time limits. In May, CBP held 46 children for over a week, including six children held for over two weeks and four children held 19 days, according to data revealed in a court filing. In March and April, CPB reported that it had 213 children in custody for more than 72 hours. That included 14 children, including toddlers, who were held for over 20 days in April. The federal government is looking to expand its immigration detention space, including by building more centers like one in Florida dubbed ' Alligator Alcatraz,' where a lawsuit alleges detainees' constitutional rights are being violated. Gee still has not ruled on the request by legal advocates for the immigrant children to expand independent monitoring of the treatment of children held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities. Currently, the agreement allows for third-party inspections at facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley regions, but plaintiffs submitted evidence showing long detention times at border facilities that violate the agreement's terms.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Global News Podcast Trump and Putin fail to reach Ukraine deal
After ending their much-heralded summit in Alaska, the US and Russian leaders have said their meeting was "productive" and "positive", despite failing to come to a firm agreement on ending the war in Ukraine. Also, the United Nations says more than 1,700 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid in Gaza since late May; African leaders want world maps to better reflect their continent's true size; and at more than 3 million years old, the fossilised remains of Lucy - a human ancestor are going on tour. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@
Economist
an hour ago
- Economist
Donald Trump's gift to Vladimir Putin
FROM THE moment he stepped off his plane onto the red-carpeted tarmac, the summit in Alaska was a triumph for Vladimir Putin. He was greeted with applause from his host, Donald Trump. The two men may have had nothing to announce after hours of talks—the first meeting between a Russian and American president since the invasion of Ukraine—but the encounter at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage transformed Mr Putin from a pariah of the West into an honoured guest on American soil.
