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"The Facebook Papers" reporting sparked a fresh wave of demands that U.S. officials break up the powerful social media company. (Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
"The Facebook Papers" on Monday prompted longtime critics of Big Tech to renew demands for policymakers within and beyond the United States to crack down on and even break up the social media giant.
A consortium of 17 American news outlets--along with a separate group of European newsrooms--on Friday began publishing articles on internal documents obtained by former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen, though much of the reporting was released Monday.
"It's an important day to read the news," said the American Economic Liberties Project, pointing to the Facebook Papers and reiterating its call to break up the company.
\u201cToday, a consortium of 17 news organizations are reporting on a trove of internal @Facebook documents, providing new insight into @Facebook's toxic business model.\n\nIt\u2019s an important day to read the news. It\u2019s also a good day to break up @Facebook.\nhttps://t.co/VUB8KhLN2i\u201d— American Economic Liberties Project (@American Economic Liberties Project) 1635169538
The reporting shows Facebook prioritizes growth and profit over trying to prevent and contain problematic content. As The Verge summarized, key findings include that Facebook "was caught off guard" by Covid-19 vaccine misinformation, it struggled to handle efforts to delegitimize the 2020 U.S. election, and Apple threatened to ban its apps over online "slave markets."
Echoing reactions to a second whistleblower submitting a complaint about the company to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, Evan Greer, director of the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, declared that "Facebook can't be reformed."
"We can and should push for policies that reduce its immediate harm to marginalized communities in the short term," she said Monday. "But in the long term, we need policies that reduce its power, so that we can build alternatives to fully abolish and replace it."
\u201cExpect dozens of think pieces this week along the lines of "how do we fix Facebook."\n\nI'd love to see just one that attempts to imagine a world without / beyond Facebook.\u201d— Evan Greer is on Mastodon (@Evan Greer is on Mastodon) 1635167959
"Before it was acquired by Facebook, Instagram actually tried to improve quality instead of just increasing virality at all costs," tweeted Fordham University School of Law professor Zephyr Teachout. "Break them up!"
Facebook bought the photo- and video-sharing platform Instagram in 2012 then acquired the messaging service WhatsApp two years later. The company is also responsible for the highly popular Messenger application.
The Real Facebook Oversight Board (RFOB) framed the new reporting as vindication of Haugen's recent public comments.
"Today's avalanche of leaks, revelations, and reporting blasts apart Facebook's spin that Frances Haugen was 'cherry picking' documents," the RFOB statement said. "Across 17 news organizations, dozens of journalists, and thousands of documents, the Facebook Papers and Frances Haugen's continued testimony have laid bare the extreme harm and devastating impacts of Facebook."
Related Content
"In breathtaking detail, the Facebook Papers show a company that is in the thrall of right-wing extremists, so afraid of looking 'partisan' that they welcome insurrectionists, racists, and disinformation artists onto their platforms under the guise of free speech," the RFOB continued. "Ignoring house on fire warnings from their own staff and lying to regulators and their own oversight board, we now see Facebook for what it really is: an international criminal enterprise."
The RFOB called for an independent investigation:
The Facebook Papers also reveal the absolute inadequacy of Facebook's oversight board, fiddling while Rome burns and begging the company to stop lying. As MP and RFOB member Damian Collins said today in Parliament, the "hindsight board" lacks the independence and mandate to hold Facebook accountable when it needs oversight the most. As new allegations cascade down around Facebook, the oversight board by design has no authority to intervene.
We reject the premise that the Facebook oversight board can ever be considered independent.
Instead, at this defining moment of crisis for Facebook and democracy, we call for a full, independent, outside investigation of Facebook and the allegations raised in the Facebook Files, the Facebook Papers, and recent SEC filings. In the U.S., the U.K., and the E.U., policymakers should fast-track legislation to ensure permanent, independent oversight of Facebook. No criminal should appoint its own judge and jury, as Facebook has done with its oversight board.
Haugen's testimony to the U.K. Parliament on Monday resembled what she recently told U.S. lawmakers about Facebook: that it "fans hate," the "current system is biased towards bad actors, and people who push people to the extremes," and the company has been "negligent" in terms of addressing concerns raised internally by its own data scientists for years.
Related Content
Employing language often used by critics of Big Oil's climate lies, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Monday that "there's a lot to discover in these papers about how the platform promotes extremism and hurts our communities, but here's what is clear: Facebook knew."
"For too long, tech companies have said, 'Trust us, we've got this.' Now the extent to which Facebook has put profits over people is becoming more and more clear," said Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel.
"The time has come for action from all sides to rein in Big Tech," she asserted, calling for modernizing competition laws, holding companies accountable for spreading disinformation, and federal privacy legislation "with rules of the road for tech platforms to protect user data and ensure that algorithms stop promoting toxic and dangerous content."
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"The Facebook Papers" on Monday prompted longtime critics of Big Tech to renew demands for policymakers within and beyond the United States to crack down on and even break up the social media giant.
A consortium of 17 American news outlets--along with a separate group of European newsrooms--on Friday began publishing articles on internal documents obtained by former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen, though much of the reporting was released Monday.
"It's an important day to read the news," said the American Economic Liberties Project, pointing to the Facebook Papers and reiterating its call to break up the company.
\u201cToday, a consortium of 17 news organizations are reporting on a trove of internal @Facebook documents, providing new insight into @Facebook's toxic business model.\n\nIt\u2019s an important day to read the news. It\u2019s also a good day to break up @Facebook.\nhttps://t.co/VUB8KhLN2i\u201d— American Economic Liberties Project (@American Economic Liberties Project) 1635169538
The reporting shows Facebook prioritizes growth and profit over trying to prevent and contain problematic content. As The Verge summarized, key findings include that Facebook "was caught off guard" by Covid-19 vaccine misinformation, it struggled to handle efforts to delegitimize the 2020 U.S. election, and Apple threatened to ban its apps over online "slave markets."
Echoing reactions to a second whistleblower submitting a complaint about the company to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, Evan Greer, director of the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, declared that "Facebook can't be reformed."
"We can and should push for policies that reduce its immediate harm to marginalized communities in the short term," she said Monday. "But in the long term, we need policies that reduce its power, so that we can build alternatives to fully abolish and replace it."
\u201cExpect dozens of think pieces this week along the lines of "how do we fix Facebook."\n\nI'd love to see just one that attempts to imagine a world without / beyond Facebook.\u201d— Evan Greer is on Mastodon (@Evan Greer is on Mastodon) 1635167959
"Before it was acquired by Facebook, Instagram actually tried to improve quality instead of just increasing virality at all costs," tweeted Fordham University School of Law professor Zephyr Teachout. "Break them up!"
Facebook bought the photo- and video-sharing platform Instagram in 2012 then acquired the messaging service WhatsApp two years later. The company is also responsible for the highly popular Messenger application.
The Real Facebook Oversight Board (RFOB) framed the new reporting as vindication of Haugen's recent public comments.
"Today's avalanche of leaks, revelations, and reporting blasts apart Facebook's spin that Frances Haugen was 'cherry picking' documents," the RFOB statement said. "Across 17 news organizations, dozens of journalists, and thousands of documents, the Facebook Papers and Frances Haugen's continued testimony have laid bare the extreme harm and devastating impacts of Facebook."
Related Content
"In breathtaking detail, the Facebook Papers show a company that is in the thrall of right-wing extremists, so afraid of looking 'partisan' that they welcome insurrectionists, racists, and disinformation artists onto their platforms under the guise of free speech," the RFOB continued. "Ignoring house on fire warnings from their own staff and lying to regulators and their own oversight board, we now see Facebook for what it really is: an international criminal enterprise."
The RFOB called for an independent investigation:
The Facebook Papers also reveal the absolute inadequacy of Facebook's oversight board, fiddling while Rome burns and begging the company to stop lying. As MP and RFOB member Damian Collins said today in Parliament, the "hindsight board" lacks the independence and mandate to hold Facebook accountable when it needs oversight the most. As new allegations cascade down around Facebook, the oversight board by design has no authority to intervene.
We reject the premise that the Facebook oversight board can ever be considered independent.
Instead, at this defining moment of crisis for Facebook and democracy, we call for a full, independent, outside investigation of Facebook and the allegations raised in the Facebook Files, the Facebook Papers, and recent SEC filings. In the U.S., the U.K., and the E.U., policymakers should fast-track legislation to ensure permanent, independent oversight of Facebook. No criminal should appoint its own judge and jury, as Facebook has done with its oversight board.
Haugen's testimony to the U.K. Parliament on Monday resembled what she recently told U.S. lawmakers about Facebook: that it "fans hate," the "current system is biased towards bad actors, and people who push people to the extremes," and the company has been "negligent" in terms of addressing concerns raised internally by its own data scientists for years.
Related Content
Employing language often used by critics of Big Oil's climate lies, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Monday that "there's a lot to discover in these papers about how the platform promotes extremism and hurts our communities, but here's what is clear: Facebook knew."
"For too long, tech companies have said, 'Trust us, we've got this.' Now the extent to which Facebook has put profits over people is becoming more and more clear," said Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel.
"The time has come for action from all sides to rein in Big Tech," she asserted, calling for modernizing competition laws, holding companies accountable for spreading disinformation, and federal privacy legislation "with rules of the road for tech platforms to protect user data and ensure that algorithms stop promoting toxic and dangerous content."
"The Facebook Papers" on Monday prompted longtime critics of Big Tech to renew demands for policymakers within and beyond the United States to crack down on and even break up the social media giant.
A consortium of 17 American news outlets--along with a separate group of European newsrooms--on Friday began publishing articles on internal documents obtained by former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen, though much of the reporting was released Monday.
"It's an important day to read the news," said the American Economic Liberties Project, pointing to the Facebook Papers and reiterating its call to break up the company.
\u201cToday, a consortium of 17 news organizations are reporting on a trove of internal @Facebook documents, providing new insight into @Facebook's toxic business model.\n\nIt\u2019s an important day to read the news. It\u2019s also a good day to break up @Facebook.\nhttps://t.co/VUB8KhLN2i\u201d— American Economic Liberties Project (@American Economic Liberties Project) 1635169538
The reporting shows Facebook prioritizes growth and profit over trying to prevent and contain problematic content. As The Verge summarized, key findings include that Facebook "was caught off guard" by Covid-19 vaccine misinformation, it struggled to handle efforts to delegitimize the 2020 U.S. election, and Apple threatened to ban its apps over online "slave markets."
Echoing reactions to a second whistleblower submitting a complaint about the company to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, Evan Greer, director of the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, declared that "Facebook can't be reformed."
"We can and should push for policies that reduce its immediate harm to marginalized communities in the short term," she said Monday. "But in the long term, we need policies that reduce its power, so that we can build alternatives to fully abolish and replace it."
\u201cExpect dozens of think pieces this week along the lines of "how do we fix Facebook."\n\nI'd love to see just one that attempts to imagine a world without / beyond Facebook.\u201d— Evan Greer is on Mastodon (@Evan Greer is on Mastodon) 1635167959
"Before it was acquired by Facebook, Instagram actually tried to improve quality instead of just increasing virality at all costs," tweeted Fordham University School of Law professor Zephyr Teachout. "Break them up!"
Facebook bought the photo- and video-sharing platform Instagram in 2012 then acquired the messaging service WhatsApp two years later. The company is also responsible for the highly popular Messenger application.
The Real Facebook Oversight Board (RFOB) framed the new reporting as vindication of Haugen's recent public comments.
"Today's avalanche of leaks, revelations, and reporting blasts apart Facebook's spin that Frances Haugen was 'cherry picking' documents," the RFOB statement said. "Across 17 news organizations, dozens of journalists, and thousands of documents, the Facebook Papers and Frances Haugen's continued testimony have laid bare the extreme harm and devastating impacts of Facebook."
Related Content
"In breathtaking detail, the Facebook Papers show a company that is in the thrall of right-wing extremists, so afraid of looking 'partisan' that they welcome insurrectionists, racists, and disinformation artists onto their platforms under the guise of free speech," the RFOB continued. "Ignoring house on fire warnings from their own staff and lying to regulators and their own oversight board, we now see Facebook for what it really is: an international criminal enterprise."
The RFOB called for an independent investigation:
The Facebook Papers also reveal the absolute inadequacy of Facebook's oversight board, fiddling while Rome burns and begging the company to stop lying. As MP and RFOB member Damian Collins said today in Parliament, the "hindsight board" lacks the independence and mandate to hold Facebook accountable when it needs oversight the most. As new allegations cascade down around Facebook, the oversight board by design has no authority to intervene.
We reject the premise that the Facebook oversight board can ever be considered independent.
Instead, at this defining moment of crisis for Facebook and democracy, we call for a full, independent, outside investigation of Facebook and the allegations raised in the Facebook Files, the Facebook Papers, and recent SEC filings. In the U.S., the U.K., and the E.U., policymakers should fast-track legislation to ensure permanent, independent oversight of Facebook. No criminal should appoint its own judge and jury, as Facebook has done with its oversight board.
Haugen's testimony to the U.K. Parliament on Monday resembled what she recently told U.S. lawmakers about Facebook: that it "fans hate," the "current system is biased towards bad actors, and people who push people to the extremes," and the company has been "negligent" in terms of addressing concerns raised internally by its own data scientists for years.
Related Content
Employing language often used by critics of Big Oil's climate lies, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Monday that "there's a lot to discover in these papers about how the platform promotes extremism and hurts our communities, but here's what is clear: Facebook knew."
"For too long, tech companies have said, 'Trust us, we've got this.' Now the extent to which Facebook has put profits over people is becoming more and more clear," said Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel.
"The time has come for action from all sides to rein in Big Tech," she asserted, calling for modernizing competition laws, holding companies accountable for spreading disinformation, and federal privacy legislation "with rules of the road for tech platforms to protect user data and ensure that algorithms stop promoting toxic and dangerous content."
"An entirely man-made famine," said one United Nations expert. "The threshold of famine has been reached with widespread starvation and malnutrition across the war-torn enclave including among children."
The latest alert on Gaza from the world's leading authority on starvation and malnutrition is not a warning of what could come in the besieged enclave, where Israel is still blocking nearly all humanitarian aid, but of the "worst-case scenario" that has already taken hold.
"Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip," said the Integrated Phase Food Security Classification (IPC), which ranks food security levels on a scale of 1 to 5, in its Tuesday analysis.
Since the IPC's analysis in May, in which it projected that half a million Palestinians in Gaza would reach Phase 5—Catastrophe, defined as an "extreme lack of food"—by September, Israel's bombardments and ground operations have intensified, and people's access to food across the enclave has continued to be "alarmingly erratic and extremely perilous," said the IPC, with more than 1,000 people killed while trying to access food and humanitarian aid.
Between May and July, the proportion of households facing extreme hunger has doubled in Gaza, said the IPC, and the food consumption threshold for famine "has already been passed for most areas of the Gaza Strip." One in three people in Gaza are now going days at a time without consuming any food.
At least 147 people have died from starvation, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
In May, the IPC projected that malnutrition would soon reach critical levels in the governorates of North Gaza, Gaza, and Rafah, with more than 70,000 children under age 5 and 17,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women facing acute malnutrition—and said all of Gaza was facing "a risk of famine."
Tuesday's report, said the International Rescue Committee, was "a devastating but entirely predictable confirmation of what the IRC and the wider humanitarian community have long warned: Israel's restrictions on aid have created the conditions for famine, and the window to prevent mass death is rapidly closing."
More than 20,000 children have been admitted to health centers for treatment for acute malnutrition, with more than 3,000 facing severe malnourishment—the effects of which, said the IRC, can be "lifelong and irreversible" in children who survive.
At least 16 children under 5 have died from starvation since July 17, said the IPC—representing a "rapid increase" in hunger-related deaths that is unlikely to slow down without an end to Israel's blockade and a major ramp-up in the distribution of humanitarian aid—which is currently sitting in thousands of trucks just outside the enclave, as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Tuesday.
"The worst-case scenario of famine is now happening in Gaza according to the leading world experts," said Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, whose agency has provided aid and services to Palestinians in Gaza for decades. "An entirely man-made famine. The threshold of famine has been reached with widespread starvation and malnutrition across the war-torn enclave including among children. More than 100 people have died due to hunger in the past few weeks alone. The only way to reverse this catastrophe is to flood Gaza with a massive scale up of aid."
An estimated 62,000 metric tons of staple food—not including fresh foods like vegetables and meat—is required to enter Gaza each month to cover the basic needs of the population. In May and June, only 19,900-37,800 metric tons of food entered the enclave. That includes food provided by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, where Israeli soldiers have reported that they were directed to shoot at Palestinian civilians trying to access aid.
"People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods," said U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu. "We urgently need safe and sustained humanitarian access and immediate support to restore local food production and livelihoods—this is the only way to prevent further loss of life. The right to food is a basic human right."
As international outrage has grown over the images of starving Palestinians in recent days—with even the U.S. corporate media and Democratic establishment finally speaking out against Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid—Israel has paused some fighting and allowed airdrops of food, which aid groups have condemned as a "grotesque distraction" that will provide nowhere near the aid that's needed.
"Israel's genocide has thrown Gaza into the final chaotic stages of a full-blown human catastrophe," said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead for Oxfam in the occupied Palestinian territories. "Airdrops, and brief pauses for relative crumbs of aid, is nowhere near enough to prevent human death at an unimaginable scale. We need urgent forceful diplomacy and whatever restrictive measures are necessary in order to achieve an immediate and unconditional cease-fire, break Israel's siege, and allow humanitarian aid to flow freely and safely throughout Gaza."
As Common Dreams reported Monday, Republican leaders in the U.S. including President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have shown no signs that they will act on the new data in the IPC report; both continued to dismiss the international condemnation of Israel's blockade in Gaza, repeating debunked claims that Hamas is to blame for the starvation of Palestinians.
The U.S. has continued to provide the Israel Defense Forces with support despite its own laws stating that the U.S. cannot send military aid to countries that block humanitarian aid.
Khalidi said the IPC's new warning of "an unfolding famine—one created entirely by Israel's murderous siege—must finally rouse the international community to act with a clarity and resolve that has so far been beyond it."
"World leaders have been variously divided, complicit, uncaring, and collectively ineffectual in stopping Israel's campaign of erasure," said Khalidi. "In failing to protect the Palestinian people, they have no more excuses left. Ending Israel's genocide of Gaza is a test not only of our world order but of our collective humanity."
As mass starvation in Gaza reaches horrific new levels, European governments are attempting to pressure Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid.
As Israel's starvation campaign in Gaza accelerates, the Netherlands has banned two far-right Israeli ministers from entering the country after they "repeatedly incited violence against the Palestinian population," and "called for ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip."
The officials—National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—are both members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, and they have called for Palestinians to be forced out of Gaza in order to make room for Israeli settlers.
In a letter sent to Dutch lawmakers Monday evening, Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp declared the two ministers "persona non grata," adding that "the war in Gaza must stop."
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that one in three people in Gaza is going multiple days at a time without eating. Meanwhile, acute malnutrition rates have quadrupled over the past month to the point where nearly 1 in 5 children is at risk of death from hunger.
"People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods," said Qu Dongyu, the director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Israel said it allowed 120 aid trucks to enter the strip on Sunday. But according to U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher, that is "a drop in the ocean" compared to what the population needs to survive.
As starvation in Gaza approached what a U.N.-backed report described Monday as the "worst case scenario," Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have doubled down on calls for maximum torment.
After Netanyahu announced that Israel would allow a meager trickle of aid into the strip following international outcry, Ben-Gvir described Netanyahu as "morally bankrupt" for allowing any food into the strip.
"I think at this stage, the only thing you should be sending to Gaza is shells," Ben-Gvir said. "To bomb, conquer, encourage emigration, and win the war."
Last week, at a conference in the Israeli parliament with far-right Jewish settlers, Smotrich discussed plans "to relocate Gazans to other countries," which he said "will serve as a means of facilitating the settlement of the strip" by Jewish Israelis.
In May, Smotrich said, "Within a few months, we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed," and spoke of "concentrating" its civilians in preparation for their mass exodus from the strip.
"They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places," he added.
The Netherlands is not the first country to attempt to punish the far-right ministers.
Earlier this month, Slovenia became the first nation to ban Smotrich and Ben-Gvir from entry, citing their incitement of "extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians" with "their genocidal statements."
The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway have also imposed financial sanctions on the two men.
On Tuesday, the European Commission proposed partially suspending Israel from the $100 million Horizon research program, citing the Gaza famine.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that unless Israel complies with agreements to allow humanitarian aid access, he would support banning Israel from the prestigious research program and potentially take other "national measures to increase the pressure."
"The government's goal is crystal clear," Schoof said. "The people of Gaza must be given immediate, unfettered, safe access to humanitarian aid."
"If the Constitution doesn't apply to somebody who's lived in this country for 35 years and is a green-card holder... the Constitution doesn't apply to anybody who's been in this country for less time than him," said an attorney representing the scientist.
A permanent U.S. resident has been held in detention for the last week without apparent explanation and without access to legal representation, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
According to the Post, 40-year-old Tae Heung "Will" Kim was detained by immigration officials at the San Francisco International Airport on July 21 after returning from attending his brother's wedding in Korea. In the week since his detention, he has still not been released despite being a green-card holder who has lived in the United States since the age of five.
Eric Lee, an attorney representing Kim, said he has been unable to contact his client and that Kim's only past brush with the law came back in 2011 when he was ordered to perform community service over a minor marijuana possession charge in Texas.
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seemed to suggest in a statement to the Post that this past instance of marijuana possession was enough justification to detain and deport Kim.
"If a green-card holder is convicted of a drug offense, violating their status, that person is issued a Notice to Appear and CBP coordinates detention space with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations]," they said. "This alien is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings."
Lee told the Post that he reached out to CBP to ask whether his client had protections under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution that guarantee rights such as the right to an attorney. In response, the CBP official simply told Lee, "No."
"If the Constitution doesn't apply to somebody who's lived in this country for 35 years and is a green-card holder—and only left the country for a two-week vacation—that means [the government] is basically arguing that the Constitution doesn't apply to anybody who's been in this country for less time than him," Lee said.
Lee added that it would be particularly uncommon for immigration officials to deport his client based solely on a 2011 marijuana possession charge given that Kim had successfully petitioned to seal the offense from his public record after fulfilling his community service requirements. Because of this, Lee said that Kim's case should easily clear the waiver process that allows officials to overlook past minor offenses that could otherwise be used to justify stripping people of their permanent legal resident status.
Prior to his detention, Kim was pursuing a PhD at Texas A&M University, where he was doing research to help develop a vaccine against Lyme disease.
Immigration enforcement officials under the second Trump administration have been particularly aggressive in trying to deport students who are legally in the United States.
Turkish-born Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained for months earlier this year after she was apparently targeted for writing an editorial in her student newspaper critical of the school's refusal to divest from Israel. Russian-born Harvard University scientist Kseniia Petrova, meanwhile, is currently facing deportation after she was charged with allegedly smuggling frog embryos into the United States.