ICE Arrests Protestor
A glaring example of trying to terrorize those the administration doesn't like.
To add an even more extreme item to the list provided by Don Moynihan, ICE appears to be using it power to silence opinions that the current administration does not like. Reuters reports that US immigration agents arrest Palestinian student protester at Columbia University in Trump crackdown.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a social media post that it had arrested Khalil because he has “led activities aligned to Hamas,” without elaborating. DHS spokespeople did not respond to Reuters questions.
U.S. law forbids, opens new tab providing “material support or resources” to groups the U.S. has designated as terrorist organizations, including Hamas, the Palestinian-nationalist Islamist group that governs Gaza and controls the territory’s militant wing. That law does not define or prohibit “activities aligned to” these groups, and DHS spokespeople did not respond to questions about their accusation.
Neither department has said Khalil is accused of giving material support to Hamas, or of any other crime.
So, as best as I can tell from both the reporting about his arrest and what I recollect about the protests, the “activities aligned to Hamas” are entirely opinion-based and assembly-based “activities.” In other words, exercising free speech and free assembly.
Further, if the federal government had evidence of actual material support for Hamas, I expect that the FBI would have come knocking, not ICE. Moreover, the threatened punishment would likely be more than just visa revocation and deportation.
On that count, let it be underscored that Khalil is a green card holder and is married to an American citizen. To add to the cruelty of it all, his wife is eight months pregnant.
Note the following from Khalil’s attorney, Amy Greer (source: the NYT):
Ms. Greer said she was not sure of Mr. Khalil’s “precise whereabouts,” and that he may have been transferred as far away as Louisiana. Mr. Khalil’s wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant, tried to visit him at a detention center in New Jersey but was told he was not being held there, Ms. Greer said.
So, not only was he arrested, but it is also not clear where he is being held. Again, this is an attempt by the administration to sew fear and terror among people whose views the administration does not like. It also targets an individual and his family with cruelty.
Yesterday on Twitter, I noted that some were saying that Khalil had been “disappeared.” This is a verb used in the past to describe the way in which enemies of the state were apprehended and then swallowed up by the state apparatus so that no one knew for sure where they were nor what was happening to them. It is a term that any Latin Americanist knows, as the tactic was common in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile during their brutal authoritarian periods.
If, in fact, Khalil’s wife and attorney are not sure where he is, then the term fits.
Indeed, the description of Khalil’s wife trying to visit her husband in detention and being told that he wasn’t where she thought he was is a scene out of Chile in 1974 or Argentina in 1980.
At a bare minimum, Khalil deserves due process. This would be true if he were just a student visa holder, but it is especially true as a permanent resident married to a citizen.
And from that same NYT piece, I would note that the administration is not alleging a crime here.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement on Sunday night that Mr. Khalil had been arrested “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.”
I decided to look at a source that would be likely quite critical of Khalil, on the assumption that if there was some claim or allegation that might not make it into mainstream accounts, such a source might assert it. So, I looked at the NY Post: Who is Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University agitator detained by ICE for deportation?
First, “agitator” sounds like something a bad guy in a movie about Nazis or Communistist might say about anti-regime characters.
Second, this is the worst that the piece can generate.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents aided a Columbia -owned apartment inhabited by Mahmoud Khalil, who fronts a radical group, Columbia United Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which sympathizes with terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and calls for the “end of Western civilization.”
According to his LinkedIn, Khalil briefly served as a political affairs officer with UNRWA — a UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees — which was stripped of tens of millions in federal funding after an explosive report that some of its members took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel in which 1,200 people were killed.
While I am sure that some Post readers would find these inflammatory facts, none of them are illegal. The stuff in the first paragraph is clearly protected by the First Amendment. Further, having worked for UNRWA is likewise not illegal.
The bottom line is that all of this sounds like arresting someone because they said things Trump and his administration don’t like. Moreover, the way it is being done is clearly intended to create fear and anxiety for those associated with Khalil and, indeed, broader society.
No doubt a lot of people will not be sympathetic to Khalil, but of course, authoritarian regimes often first turn their tools of terrorizing populations against the unpopular. But that does not mean that they will contain those tools to only one person or group.
For more, this rundown by Forbes is fairly comprehensive: Mahmoud Khalil: Trump Admin Doubles Down On Detaining Columbia Pro-Palestinian Activist—What We Know.
If an EO can get someone arrested then the US is no longer a nation of laws, but rather a personal dictatorship.
This is not an exaggeration.
Not the only immigration horror story, Steve M. has some others:
“NMMNB”
https://bsky.app/profile/joshuaholland.bsky.social/post/3ljy337pgzc2c
Etc.
“Link”
As Martin Longman at Progress Pond keeps saying:
An egregious and fascistic violation of the free speech principles President Musk, First Lady Trump, and the right claim to have but do not.
And one more reason Uncommitted and Michigan Muslims should have worked to elect Harris, rather than helping Trump — who was known well before the election to be several times worse for their cause.
@drj: If he is being detained for his activities before the EO was signed, this also appears to be an ex post facto enforcement action.
Transporting Mr. Khalil from NYC to Louisiana for detention ain’t going to do nothing about fentanyl abuse or the price of eggs. The transport cost is waste & fraud though, so surely DOGE will end such practices, right?
@JKB: That’s a Fortune-level saying nothing post. Well done, sir or ma’am or enbytron.
@drj:
That kind of depends on what happens next, doesn’t it? Lots of people get arrested by overreaching law enforcement, with charges dropped or no significant conviction. It’s usually a more local law enforcement thing, and we have courts to check this behavior.
This is troubling as fuck. But we’re not into full dictatorship territory until the courts either acquiesce or the administration defies the courts. Maybe not even until they can do it to a citizen.
Racing down the slope towards dictatorship. Slipperiness to be determined.
@JKB: I don’t think your post says nothing. It says “Khalil is here at the Jena/LaSalle detention center”. This appears to rebut the claim that Khalil has been “disappeared”.
However, there are multiple parts to that claim.
1. We don’t know where he is.
2. We don’t know what they are doing to him.
3. We don’t know why they are holding him. In particular what he is charged with.
And also, I am to take from your post that you endorse this action. I want you to know that I am unenthusiastic about Khalil’s politics. However, I encountered many people with far more extreme views standing on soapboxes declaiming said views outside the Commons when I was an undergrad. My attitude is “let them yammer”.
If we think he committed a crime, then let the charges be known. But he isn’t in a criminal detention facility, is he?
I take from your post that you support all of this. Grabbing someone who has broken no law, and stuffing him away in a detention facility with no notification of his lawyer or his wife, and keeping him there for an unspecified time. You’re fine with doing that to a green carder? That’s what you seem to be saying.
If I’m wrong about you, please say so.
@Jay L Gischer: It appears that green cards can be revoked if the holder commits certain (unspecified in my source) crimes.
What crime/crimes is Khalil charged with? How is there not a motion for habeas corpus not already before a judge?
Hmm, there’s a 24-hour rule: LE can hold someone for 23 hours without any charge or cause. And the hours of a weekend don’t count against the 23-hour clock. What do you bet they let him go some time tonight? In Louisiana.
A judge blocked his deportation.
…which would seem to indicate the government tried to get him out of the country ASAP.
@dazedandconfused:
I’m horrified to say I think there’s an even chance he gets expelled from the US in defiance of the court order.
No, this guy wasn’t “disappeared,” much less in the manner of Chile or Argentina decades ago (Steven got a bit over his skis making that judgment), but that doesn’t mean this isn’t bad and potentially very bad.
And contra drj’s comment, any authority being exercised here doesn’t begin and end with an EO.
Eugene Volokh has a good rundown of the legal issues (written last week when the EO came out and before this detainment), which are, unfortunately, way too murky for my liking when it comes to national security exemptions for the normal process.
I’ll just point to FIRE, which is doing and saying all the proper things, as per usual. Those of you with money should consider giving them some – they are going to have a lot of work ahead of them.
@Andy:
Great. It’s not like Argentina or Chile so there’s nothing to worry about.
I look forward to the day where you take off those rose colored glasses and admit that we have a fucking problem. Because all your comments about “let’s wait until he really does something bad before we overreact” is sounding really freaking hollow right now.
@EddieInDR:
What a bullshit dishonest characterization. Where did I say there is nothing to worry about? Clearly I didn’t. That is your wrong presumption.
My view is that it’s important to be accurate when describing what’s going on. The constant catastrophizing and worst-casing about everything only degrades the credibility of the catastrophizers. What Trump is doing is bad enough that one shouldn’t feel the need to exaggerate, but some people just can’t seem to help themselves for reasons I’ve been trying to understand for decades and still don’t.
It’s not rose-colored glasses to describe things accurately based on the facts at present, or – shocking, I know – wait until more facts come in before jumping feet-first with the worst-case rank speculation. What about what I wrote is patently wrong? What is it – really – that bothers you? Are you upset that I didn’t spend time uselessly yelling at clouds?
Also, I do know we have a fucking problem dude – you ought to check out earlier threads on all the BS going on in the civil service, which I commented a lot about because it’s something I actually know about and can provide some (IMO) value-added commentary. And you should not make so many uncharitable assumptions about me. I could emote here at length about all the BS that is going on right now, about some of the darker thoughts I have about things I wish would happen or wish I could do, but I don’t for reasons that ought to be obvious. Nor do I tend to participate in the daily (multiple times per day) OTB catharsis of condemning the outrage(s) du jour (yelling at clouds).
Ultimately, I try to be a practical and pragmatic person (there’s a reason for my avatar), and I am doing a lot more IRL (as the kids say) than you will ever see expressed here. We’ve “known” each other for quite a long time here, so it would be nice if you extended me a little goodwill and grace, which your comment was the opposite of.
@Andy:
I stand by this:
I didn’t actually say he was disappeared in the manner of Chile or Argentina. For one thing, he is alive.
I think that being arrested in the lobby of your apartment and taken to another state over a thousand miles away, facing possible quick expulsion from the country, and it not being immediately obvious to your spouse as to where you might be, is far closer to being disappeared than is anything that I am at all comfortable with in American jurisprudence.
My mind should not go to Pinochet’s Chile, and yet it did.
If ICE agents showed up and took my spouse away, with the clear intent to expel him from the country, it would feel a lot more like Argentina in 1980 than the US of A is supposed to feel.
This is especially true when it seems pretty clear to me that the reason he is being targeted is his political speech.
I understand your predeliction to try and be calm about all of this, but I think you do come across as minimizing, even though that is clearly not your goal.
(Side note: if the present political circumstance weren’t so grave, I would be amused that yesterday I was told I wasn’t being extreme enough!).
@Andy:
I will admit that i struggle with what to write about these days, and what to write about it.
While I understand why you think @EddieInDR is being uncharitable, I would say that I feel you are being uncharitable with your minimizing the concerns of those writing here. On the one hand, you aren’t wrong to call it yelling at clouds, at least in terms of efficacy. But you do realize that you are coming across as a bit patronizing as well with this characterization?
@Andy:
No. No. No.
Bullshit. You’ve been saying, for fucking months, that we’re all overreacting to Trump. Repeatedly, you said that. You also said, repeatedly, that we need to wait until he does something really bad before taking action. We can all dig up those posts by you if you want. There is no shortage of them. And they’re not aging well.
You have, repeatedly, come after those of us who think Trump is an existential threat to the country, and minimizing our concerns in a completely patronizing matter. We can dig up those posts as well. Others have called you out for this behavior.
When you decide to join us in the resistance, and you will join us because you’re a good and decent human being, I’ll welcome you. Sadly, it might be too late by then. But until that time comes, you’re still being really, really naive.
Even your comment above has a sense of sanewashing what happened to that protester, with whom I have ZERO agreement with, yet who I will fucking go to war to protect.
So spare me the commentary about how I mischaracterized your comment.
@Steven L. Taylor: Your view is much more generous than mine. I thought he was trying to minimize the situation.
MAGA Republicans seem utterly determined to make criticism of Israel/support for the Palestinians offences which will not be tolerated in American schools and universities. We saw it in the hounding of Ivy League presidents by a House committee last year. Now we’re seeing it again in a top-down exercise warning universities to stamp out “anti-Semitism” or risk funding and a bottom up project to arrest and deport student protesters.
Why this is such a high MAGA priority is not clear, at least to me, but there can no longer be any doubt that it is. Perhaps it’s regarded as a useful pilot scheme, the results of which will help plan responses to much more widespread protest action anticipated later in the year. It’s very likely Trump, Patel, Bondi and Hegseth have declared they will not allow a repeat of the 2020 BLM protests, but will crush any similar movement ruthlessly.
Whether they can succeed, of course, is another matter.
What is glaringly obvious is that all the government institutions are being brought under the control of the President.
The enforcement agencies, legislative branch, and judiciary are no longer operating independently, but acting on orders.
Not content with that, they are working to bring all outside insitutions like colleges and businesses and law firms under their control.
This is exactly the sort of tyranny the Revolution was fought to overthrow.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Your mind went there, and my mind did not. Other people’s minds probably went somewhere else. People can and do have different gut reactions and emotional responses, which is inevitable and understandable. But at the end of the day, the facts of the matter should prevail if we want to truly understand what’s going on and decide how best to address it or respond.
I want to be clear that the comment about the outrage du jour wasn’t meant as a criticism. OTB has been a current events political blog for a very long time, and the current events are Trump’s outrages. They are bloggable. I just don’t have the time and bandwidth to meaningfully participate in most of them. I’m not begrudging the posts or anyone who comments in them. And, to explain where I’m coming from, there are a lot of posts I do agree with and where I also largely share the zeitgeist of the commentariat. I usually don’t comment on those because I have nothing valued-added to say and don’t think that me adding to the pile-on is a good use of my time.
It’s called a difference of opinion. Yes, I obviously disagree with many people here regarding the extent of the threat that Trump represents. I’m happy to make my arguments, present facts and analysis, and agree to disagree. But it seems from my POV that many do not share that view and seem intent on tone policing via various rhetorical tactics ranging from impugning motives, strawman (what Eddie’s response was), well poisoning, etc. I try hard not to do that and am admittedly not always successful.
I have no problem with people wanting to yell at clouds. I do it, just not very often here, and we all need the catharsis that comes from venting. I very rarely respond to yelling at clouds comments here and my original comment was not about that at all. From my POV, a lot of people here get angry with me for not spending more time yelling at clouds and taking harder-core performative statements that align with the comment section’s zeitgeist. As I tried to explain in my response to Eddie, that’s not how I’m wired.
@EddieInDR:
First of all, I do admit that Trump has exceeded my expectations for bad behavior. I do agree that as a general matter, I didn’t take some of the potentials seriously enough. Mostly this is a matter of degree in how far he’s pushed the limits, not the overall character of how he intended to run things.
But you ought to realize there is another side to that coin—lots of people who predicted the worst since 2016 have frequently overshot the mark.
This is where a cool-headed analysis of facts and what’s actually going on is especially needed because that’s how we—ideally—adjust our expectations. So, yes, I think you do have to wait until someone does something bad. Premature doomcasting is, IMO, not only useless but also counterproductive. And one thing I’ve pointed out before is how Trump exploits this. He floods the zone with often-contradictory statements that are easy to doomcast in multiple ways. People then spend a huge amount of time and energy playing into that with doomcasting. To me, it’s completely obvious that Trump feeds on that and watching people spin-up. He’s a professional troll, and I think too many people take the bait.
In my view, what matters is what happens in the real world, not the worst-case scenarios that exist only in our heads, prompted by Trump trolling. Only by looking at the facts and what’s actually happening on the ground can we determine what is and isn’t real when it comes to Trump (or anything else).
That is not an accurate characterization. I have not “come after” anyone unless you think that mere disagreement is tantamount to “coming after” commenters here. I haven’t, for example, impugned your motives, said or implied you are stupid, erected strawmen where I tell you (falsely) what you and others really believe.
I really do understand that you and a lot of others think that Trump is an existential threat – and I’m ok with that. But I reserve the right to disagree with that assessment and explain my reasons why. That is not patronizing and that is not coming after anyone. I am perfectly happy to agree to disagree – is that something you can accept?
Ok, here I will be patronizing. What resistance, since you’ve fled the country?
More seriously, OTB comments aren’t a platform for resistance. As I said in my last comment to you, I am doing things IRL that I don’t discuss here. I don’t need to justify or explain my actions in the real world to you or anyone else here, and it would be a mistake for you to make assumptions about my level of effort based on a handful of comments on a blog.
In another comment weeks or months ago (which maybe you missed), when I join the resistance, it won’t result in me saying more mean things about Trump online to please other participants and signal my in-group affinity. It will involve me going dark online, sending my family overseas, and making certain preparations for a more active form of resistance.
I don’t think it will ever get to that, but I could be wrong! I certainly hope I’m not wrong. In the meantime, I will (and am) doing things to support and fight for the principles I believe in. Does that count as resistance?
This is emblematic of my problem with your response—you ignored the material content I actually wrote, characterized it in an uncharitable and incorrect way, and then attacked that characterization. A classic strawman.
So let me spell it out for you, so there is zero confusion:
– No, an EO can’t get someone arrested and those of us who read the EO noted that it pointed to specific law the EO said would be enforced. It’s important, IMO, to accurately understand where the legal authority Trump is claiming actually comes from, which brings me to:
I gave a link to a good legal analysis of said law and the judicial history of the subject and noted that the analysis was, unfortunately, murky. This means that what Trump is doing could potentially pass legal muster (which I think is bad). I’m sorry I didn’t go into all the details of this; I presumed people would actually read the link.
– Third, I pointed to FIRE, which has been doing the right thing about this from the beginning and still is, as the preeminate free-speech advocacy organization in the US. I also suggested that if people wanted to do something that would actually help, then giving FIRE some money to fund its efforts is a good idea.
I’m not sure how you got sanewashing out of that, but here’s some additional context for you:
– I’ve frequently said I’m very close to a free-speech absolutist, and this case is no different. What I found troubling about Volokh’s legal analysis (you really should go read it) is the degree to which the law allows people in the country legally, including permanent residents, to potentially be expelled for speech. I find that very problematic, especially when it’s selectively applied, as seems to be the case here. The administration has come right out and said this action is being taken for what amounts to speech it doesn’t like – an admission I think they will come to regret when this is adjudicated.
– Secondly, now that we have a fuller picture of what’s actually going on (as opposed to speculation), my view is that Khalil and any others need to be defended to the full extent of the law on free speech grounds. This is why I think helping FIRE directly is important. Like, you, I don’t much care for what I understand his views to be (I have not spent much time digging into his details), but as a free speech guy, he’s exactly the kind of person who needs his free speech rights upheld for the same reasons the Nazi’s could march in Skokie.
Things would be different if the facts and context were different. Again – this is exactly why I think it’s important to not get over one’s skis at first blush.
At the end of the day, based on where things are right now, I think you and I are, in reality, closely aligned on this issue.
@just nutha:
This is a perfect example of what I find so annoying about many responses to my comments here. It’s entirely about what you imagine I was “trying” to do, not anything about what I actually wrote.
Again, I will just point out that I don’t play such games. I don’t make strawman presumptions about your intentions and then disparage them. Is it really too much to ask for people here to grant me the same courtesy?
Considering how often this happens and the dozens of times over the years I’ve asked people not to do this, I guess it is too much to ask.
Maybe I should just give up and fight fire with fire.
@Andy:
As a general matter, I appreciate your general approach to the site and to commenting. You are a valuable member of the community, FWIW.
I think people get angry when you, whether intentionally or not, appear to belittle other people’s frustration.
For example, I appreciate your clarifications above, but it was hard not to take your statements about “yelling at clouds” to mean that what is written at the site is pointless. Again, I accept and appreciate your clarification, but this is how you come across at times to both the main site authors and the commenters.
Granted, a lot of this is the result of the exigencies of asynchronous interaction in little text boxes.