ICE’s arrest of a Columbia University protester on Sunday marks Donald Trump’s opening of a new front in his war on the domestic “enemy” within.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate who is married to a U.S. citizen, is a green card holder, making him a “lawful” permanent resident of the United States. By going after a lawful resident, Trump is expanding his war on the many supposed threats besieging America. The arrest goes well beyond Trump’s usual fixations, illegal immigrants or even foreign student visa holders. He is now just one step away from going after all Americans, trying to create precedent that protest and free speech is itself criminal.
“This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump said today, referring to the arrest.
On social media, Trump labeled Khalil “a radical foreign pro-Hamas student” who has engaged in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
The government is not alleging that Khalil provided “material support” to Hamas or other terrorist group, the usual claim. They instead assert a vague national security justification. In other words, the Trump White House doesn’t like what Khalil said.
Criminalizing Khalil’s views endangers all Americans. Trump’s elastic view of “anti-American” activity is ever expanding. Left unchecked, all protesting students and others, including Americans, could be criminalized too.
There are actually more lawful permanent residents in the U.S. (13.9 million) than people living here without legal status (11.4 million), according to the most recent official data from the Department of Homeland Security. In this sense, the arrest represents a greater threat to foreigners living in the U.S. than any of the administration’s previous actions.
“Your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests,” Trump says of Khalil and any similar protesters, suggesting that they are “paid agitators.”
The Trump administration is framing the arrest as an implementation of the president’s executive order on combating anti-semitism. The order authorizes federal agencies to “monitor for and report activities by alien students” who might be violating the civil rights of Jewish students. Such reports, the order continues, can lead “to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
A State Department spokesperson tells Zeteo’s Prem Thakker that "in general, the department has broad authority to revoke visas … under the Immigration and Nationality Act,”; and that the department “exercise[s] that authority when information comes to light at any time indicating that a visa holder may be inadmissible to the United States or otherwise ineligible for a visa.”
In response to Trump’s executive order, the Justice Department on February 3 created a multi-agency task force to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” according to its press release.
The federal frenzy going on in the background of Khalil’s arrest is epitomized by the baffling presence of the Department of Health and Human Services in the task force. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likens anti-semitism to a plague undermining public health. RFK’s statement has to be seen to be believed:
“Anti-Semitism — like racism — is a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues…In recent years, the censorship and false narratives of woke cancel culture have transformed our great universities into greenhouses for this deadly and virulent pestilence. Making America healthy means building communities of trust and mutual respect, based on speech freedom and open debate.”
The news media reporting on Khalil has largely missed the important point of the arrest. The AP reported, as an example, in its headline and lead paragraph that Khalil is a “Palestinian activist,” insinuating some kind of nefarious link to Hamas. It then goes on to quote a homeland security spokesperson saying that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also got in on the act, tweeting that the administration “will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
Supporters? By declining to allege any kind of material support to Hamas, Rubio is saying that any speech the government considers “support” is enough to get you a visit from ICE.
I’m not a lawyer, but the law seems pretty clear that a green card holder can only be deported if they violate rules relating to their status, conduct a serious crime, or commit espionage, terrorist, or pose a “threat” to “national security.” That’s a huge and vague category, national security. An accusation of being anti-American and posing a threat to national security can be levied against even citizens who are exercising their first Amendment rights. That’s what could be next.
“This arrest of this individual is … a deterrent” against anti-semitism on college campuses, Leo Terrell told Fox News. He is senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and head of the anti-semitism task force.
“This is the beginning of a series of victories,” he said.
The national security state has been spying on student protesters for months, as I reported last year, after learning that the National Counterterrorism Center was beefing up its intelligence collection of domestic “extremists.” The House Homeland Security Committee even nudged the intelligence and law enforcement agencies about establishing “undercover employees, online covert employees, or confidential sources” to spy on college protesters.
When FBI Director Kash Patel vowed to undertake the “world’s largest manhunt” against “anyone that wishes to do harm to our way of life,” I wrote that Gaza war protesters would be targets. Well, here we are.
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