[ti:Palestinian Student Denied Visa to Study at Harvard] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]United States officials denied a Palestinian student's request to enter the country this month. [00:09.04]The student was planning to attend classes at Harvard University. [00:16.00]Some Americans are calling what happened to him [00:19.84]an example of overly invasive safeguards at U.S. border checkpoints. [00:28.96]Ismail Ajjawi was refused entry after landing last week at Boston's airport in Massachusetts. [00:39.56]The 17-year-old said his denial was linked to political messages published by his friends on social media. [00:51.04]A U.S. Customs and Border Protection official, however, would not confirm the information. [01:00.13]The official told The Associated Press (AP) that the decision to cancel Ajjawi's visa [01:08.37]was based on information discovered during an inspection. [01:14.34]The official added, he can still try to reapply for visa to enter the country. [01:24.32]Ajjawi told the Harvard University student newspaper that federal agents detained him for eight hours. [01:34.36]He said they searched his electronic devices and questioned him about his friends' social media posts. [01:44.33]They included "political points of view that oppose the U.S.," he said in a statement. [01:54.36]"I responded that I have no business with such posts [01:59.88]and that I didn't like, (s)hare or comment on them [02:05.56]and told her that I shouldn't be held responsible for what others post," Ajjawi wrote. [02:15.60]A Harvard University official said the school is working "to resolve this matter [02:22.48]so that he can join his classmates in the coming days." [02:27.73]AMIDEAST, a not-for-profit organization that awarded Ajjawi a scholarship, is providing legal assistance. [02:40.00]Summer Lopez is a senior director with PEN America, [02:45.24]a nonprofit organization that works for free speech. [02:50.95]She said, "Preventing people from entering the country [02:55.80]because their friends critiqued the U.S. on social media [03:01.28]shows an astounding disregard for the principle of free speech." [03:09.12]Carrie DeCell is a lawyer with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Colombia University in New York. [03:19.68]She said that the incident could result in self-censorship on social media and threaten intellectual freedom. [03:30.42]The AP reports a group that calls for stronger immigration laws, [03:36.60]the Center for Immigration Studies, did not answer its request for comment. [03:43.71]But the administration of President Donald Trump has said the increased searches [03:50.64]are critical to prevent extremists from entering the country. [03:56.44]U.S. agents have been inspecting electronic devices and social media posts at border points for some time. [04:06.82]In June, the State Department expanded the measures, [04:11.49]requiring nearly all foreigners seeking U.S. visas to provide their social media usernames. [04:20.29]They also are required to list current and former email addresses and phone numbers. [04:28.68]In the past, such information was requested only of individuals identified for more investigation, [04:38.38]such as people who had traveled to areas controlled by terrorist groups. [04:47.00]It is not clear how many social media searches border officials have carried out [04:54.03]since the new policy took effect. [04:57.04]But the agency did conduct more than 33,000 electronic device searches [05:04.60]during a 12-month period ending in September 2018. [05:10.60]That is four times higher than the 8,500 searches conducted three years earlier. [05:21.60]The government released those numbers as a result of legal action [05:27.15]by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups. [05:32.08]Ajjawi told The Harvard Crimson newspaper he still hopes to join his classmates [05:39.97]in time for the start of classes next week. [05:44.29]His family lives in a camp for Palestinian refugees in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. [05:55.20]I'm Anne Ball. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM