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.
