Mahmoud Khalil, the Great Rorschach Test
Shit’s getting very real at Columbia: On Saturday evening, federal immigration authorities arrested Columbia University protester/graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder from a refugee camp in Syria (whose family is Palestinian) who technically has Algerian citizenship. (Reason‘s Matthew Petti actually interviewed Khalil several months ago and has more on his story.)
Khalil has an American wife who is eight months pregnant. It’s not clear which specific laws he stands accused of breaking, and immigration authorities were initially confused as to whether he was on a student visa or a green card; as a lawful permanent resident, he has greater due process rights. More on this here, from Reason‘s Jack Nicastro.
He has been sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana, where he is being detained. “The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder studying in this country legally—is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights,” the New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman declared in a statement. “Ripping a student from their home, challenging their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint will chill student speech and advocacy across campus. Political speech should never be a basis of punishment, or lead to deportation.”
The Trump administration, for its part, calls Khalil a “threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.”
“The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” an official tells The Free Press. “He was mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the U.S.” The Department of Homeland Security says Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” which is…extremely vague. Whether they have more remains to be seen.
“This is the first arrest of many to come,” wrote President Donald Trump on Truth Social. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.…If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here.”
I for one would probably not choose to spend my time engaged in pro-Palestine protests/sit-ins/marches/blockades if I were imminently expecting a child. And if I were on a green card, I would maybe exert some extra effort to make clear how much I like my new country vs. actively antagonizing it via supporting a raping, murdering terrorist group that not only committed the atrocities of October 7 but has since 2007 denied residents of the Gaza Strip a functioning place to live, choosing to instead i
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