Given all the headlines about the US government trying to deport one or another migrant over their foreign policy views, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is a uniquely Trumpian innovation. Sadly, as the recent developments out of Latvia show, it’s far from it.

Yesterday news broke that Leonid Ragozin, an exiled Russian journalist who has lived in the Baltic country for over a decade (and is also a Jacobin contributor who I interviewed for a forthcoming piece) has been declared persona non grata by the Latvian government, which intends to swiftly deport him. The Latvian foreign minister cited unspecified “information” received from “the competent authorities” to justify this extraordinary measure, but you barely have to even read between the lines to see that Ragozin’s offense was simply having opinions and doing reporting that the Latvian elite don’t like.

For one, there’s the fact that Latvia’s own interior minister, Jānis Dombrava, came right out and said this, complaining last week that Ragozin had “over a prolonged period of time, publicly expressed opinions that are in blatant contradiction to the interests of the Latvian state.” You’ll note that this rationale is eerily similar to the words that Donald Trump’s State Department has used to claim the power to strip permanent residency from and deport pro-Palestinian activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi: that they hold views that might have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the United States.