Mahmoud Khalil Is an Easy Call
The government's stated justification for deporting him is so unconvincing that it must not be allowed to stand.
The case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and green card holder who was detained by immigration officials after participating in anti-Israel demonstrations on campus, has now become big national news. Those defending the government's efforts to deport Khalil argue that the authorities have the legal right to deport a noncitizen whose activism aligns with a terrorist group; skeptics are gravely concerned that the Trump administration is obviously violating the First Amendment.
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"This is America," wrote the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression in a statement. "We don't throw people in detention centers because of their politics. Doing so betrays our national commitment to freedom of speech."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Khalil last weekend and swiftly transferred him to a detention facility in Louisiana. A judge has temporarily halted his deportation and ordered the government to make its case before the court. Khalil is of Palestinian descent and holds Algerian citizenship; he initially entered the U.S. on a student visa but is now married to a U.S. citizen and is thus in possession of a green card.
The government's efforts to deport Khalil follow anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, an institution that has taken much criticism for failing to prevent antisemitism on campus. Pro-Palestinian students recently occupied a campus building; Khalil is a prominent activist on behalf of the Palestinian cause and was said to be negotiating with the campus administration on behalf of the protesters.
President Donald Trump has instructed the State Department to take aggressive action to remove "foreign visitors who support terrorists," and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has indicated that "we will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported." Whether the federal government has the legal authority to deport immigrants for engaging in disfavored speech is at least somewhat murky, constitutionally speaking. On one hand, case law suggests that although student visa holders enjoy the same legal rights as citizens with respect to criminal investigations, their right to remain in the U.S. may be subject to different restrictions—though Khalil, as a green card holder, is in a much stronger position.
On the other hand, the First Amendment is understood as a general restriction on the government's behavior, as The Volokh Conspiracy's Ilya Somin points out.
"The First Amendment's protection for freedom of speech, like most constitutional rights, is not limited to US citizens," he writes. "The text of the First Amendment is worded as a general limitation on government power, not a form of special protection for a particular group of people, such as US citizens or permanent residents."
Setting aside the constitutional issue, the detention of a student activist for engaging in what would clearly be considered First Amendment–protected activity under other circumstances is very alarming. If the State Department wishes to proceed with this course of action, the burden is on the government to sufficiently explain why Khalil should be deported. Authorities must persuasively demonstrate that his conduct crosses some very, very red line.
Yet, at present, the government's justifications don't come anywhere close to satisfying such a requirement. On the contrary, the official explanation for Khalil's detention is so woefully insufficient as to be laughable—except, of course, this matter isn't funny at all.
Excuses, Excuses
Earlier this week, The Free Press spoke with a White House official about the reason for Khalil's detention. The official said that Khalil is 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," said the official. "He was mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the U.S."
Khalil is not being accused of breaking the law—and yet ICE arrested him and sent him to an immigrant detention center in Louisiana. This admission is itself deeply troubling.
Equally troubling are the various accusations: threatening national security interests, mobilizing support for Hamas, and spreading antisemitism. The first is incredibly vague and subject to slippery slope considerations. Is it contrary to U.S. national security interests to object to the government's foreign policy? Isn't that both a cherished right and a hallmark of U.S. democracy? Healthy debates about the size and scope of America's presence abroad are currently taking place on both the left and right; could a Russian student who voiced skepticism of U.S. support for Ukraine have faced deportation for threatening U.S. foreign policy under the previous State Department, for instance? In both cases, we are talking about conflicts half a world away, in which the U.S. is only indirectly involved and federal policy is constantly shifting. How is U.S. foreign policy actually undermined by campus activism on this issue?
On the second accusation, if the government really believes that Khalil is "actively mobilizing support for Hamas," then they should provide some proof of this. So far, the authorities have presented shockingly little evidence that Khalil's activism is specifically aimed at empowering Hamas. If he has provided "material support" for a designated terrorist group, that would be one matter—he could be arrested on this basis. But remember, the government's position is that he is not under arrest. They are effectively claiming that he is in league with terrorists because he has participated in anti-Israel protests.
On the third accusation, once again, no evidence has even been presented that Khalil is antisemitic or has engaged in antisemitic expression.
Remarkably, these pathetic justifications for deporting Khalil look practically ironclad when compared with Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar's more recent statements to NPR. Edgar gives away the game when he admits that "this is somebody that we've invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he's put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity."
Note that Edgar did not even bother to draw a distinction between pro-Hamas activism and pro-Palestinian activism. (He also utterly failed to understand the legal distinction between a student visa holder and green card holder, which does not exactly inspire confidence.)
When pressed by NPR's Michel Martin to present some compelling reason for Khalil's deportation, Edgar asserted this:
Let me put it this way, Michel, imagine if he came in and filled out the form and said, 'I want a student visa.' They asked him, 'What are you going to do here?' And he says, 'I'm going to go and protest.' We would have never let him into the country.
That's the slippery slope in action: First, the illicit activity is pro-Hamas protesting. Then it's expanded to pro-Palestinian protesting. Finally, it's any kind of protesting at all. It's deeply telling that Khalil's would-be deporters are not even bothering to distinguish him from garden variety anti-Israel activism. What this means is that the State Department is effectively asserting the right to crack down on all sorts of protesters for national security–adjacent reasons so vague that it strains all credulity.
Supporters of free speech must oppose the arbitrary detention of a U.S. green card holder for participating in anti-Israel protests, and it is not a particularly close case. But the government's own defense of its actions is so pitiful that people should feel moved toward real outrage on Khalil's behalf.
This Week on Free Media
I'm joined by Amber Duke to discuss Khalil's case, the heroic stand by Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), Randi Weingarten fuming over cuts to the Education Department, and Elon Musk's latest court battles.
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