The Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and the Threat to Free Speech
If you don’t support free speech for people and ideas you disagree with, you can’t claim to support it at all.
On Saturday, March 8, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student at Columbia University, for his participation in the campus protests opposing Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. Along with his arrest, Khalil has had his green card revoked and could potentially be deported, the first such case in the Trump administration’s attempt to crack down on students who participated in those protests that took place at many university campuses last spring.
While Khalil is not a US citizen, his arrest and potential deportation have very serious implications for free speech in the US as he has not been charged with a single crime and his only “offense” appears to be his opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 50,000 people — the majority of which have been innocent civilians.
Many people who claimed to care about free speech all throughout former president Joe Biden’s term are now cheering on Khalil’s arrest with no sense of irony whatsoever. The claim is that since Khalil is not a US citizen he has no First Amendment right to voice his opinion, but the precedent currently being set will have a devastating impact on the right to free speech for everyone in this country, whether they’re a citizen or not.
Allegations of Anti-Semitism
On January 29, just a few days into his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order entitled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism”, which is meant to reinforce an earlier executive order that Trump signed during his first term back in 2019. These executive orders have largely served as the basis for the prosecution of Mahmoud Khalil. In a statement provided to Columbia Spectator, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student,” adding that “ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security”.
There are at least two issues with this statement. The first is the claim that the university students who engaged in the campus protests are somehow a threat to national security. The reasoning behind this claim is the allegation that those protesters support Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that conducted the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which the US government has designated as a terrorist organization. While some of the more extreme protesters (by no means the majority of them, and I’ve yet to see evidence that Khalil was one of them) may have voiced support for Hamas ideologically, that is not the same thing as being a part of the group or providing material support to it. Ideological or rhetorical support for Hamas or its actions does not automatically make someone a terrorist.
The second issue is the claim that those protests were somehow “anti-Semitic”. I’m sure if you searched hard enough you could probably find a few examples of some of the protesters voicing some sort of hatred toward Jewish people (again, I’ve seen no evidence that Khalil ever said anything that could be interpreted that way), but the protest movement in general was primarily focused on opposing Israel’s brutal war in Gaza and US support for it. Despite what many Israel supporters would try to have you believe, it is entirely possible to oppose a war that has killed tens of thousands of innocent people without harboring any sort of resentment for all Jews. In fact, many of the protesters were Jewish themselves, and student protesters at Columbia University actually held a Passover Seder during the protests.
The definition of anti-Semitism that is invoked in Trump’s 2019 executive order is that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which defines anti-Semitism so broadly that valid criticisms of the Israeli government can be deemed as being anti-Semitic. While some of the examples of anti-Semitism given in the IHRA’s definition are completely reasonable, others are not, and implementing that definition into public policy can have a chilling effect on free speech.
For instance, the IHRA’s definition states that “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,” is a form of anti-Semitism. By that standard, anyone who holds the opinion that Israel’s war in Gaza has reached the point of genocide could be accused of being anti-Semitic. Whether the war in Gaza is a genocide or not is more of an issue of semantics than anything else, as tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed in that war and the morality of that mass slaughter doesn’t necessarily change based on what one chooses to call it. By labeling anyone who views Israel’s war as genocidal an anti-Semite, the valid criticism that Israel should use a more targeted approach and make more of an attempt to spare civilian life is tarnished; and if someone can be legally punished for voicing such an opinion, as appears to be happening in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, then fewer people will feel willing or able to do so.
There are similar issues with some of the other examples in the IHRA’s definition as well. While that definition is considered “non-legally binding”, when our government creates a sort of legal framework based around it — such as Trump’s executive orders — the expression of certain opinions could potentially be penalized, which undermines the right to free speech that is enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Regardless of how wrong or deplorable you might consider an opinion to be, the idea that someone else has the right to express that opinion is a core American value, and that value shouldn’t be brushed to the side just because the person doing so happens to be an immigrant.
The Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil
According to the Associated Press, Khalil, who is of Palestinian dissent, “was born and raised in Syria,” and “He came to the U.S. on a student visa in 2022 to pursue his graduate studies at Columbia.” The AP added that he “married his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, in 2023,” and “He became a legal permanent resident — also known as a green card holder — last year.” The AP also reported that “Khalil was one of the most visible activists in the protests last spring at Columbia,” because “He served as a student negotiator — a role that had him speaking frequently with university officials and the press.”
Khalil’s public-facing role in the protests is likely a leading factor in why the Trump administration chose to begin their crackdown on student protesters with him, as they probably wanted to make an example out of him in order to deter any other students here on visas or green cards from continuing to criticize the US’s support for Israel’s war.
On March 10, Jesse Furman, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, blocked Khalil’s deportation in order to “preserve the court’s jurisdiction before the government could move Khalil outside the state or remove him from the country in a case that his lawyers say violated the student’s First Amendment rights,” according to Politico.
After his arrest earlier this month outside his Columbia University-owned apartment in New York — which was captured in cell phone footage by his pregnant wife — Khalil was first detained in New Jersey before being taken to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana. According to Verite News, that detention center “has a troubled past that includes allegations of abuse and sexual assault, excessive use of force, overuse of solitary confinement, medical mistreatment or neglect and unfit living conditions.”
“Civil rights lawyers who work with immigrants locked up in Louisiana’s detention centers say they are concerned for Khalil, given the Jena facility’s unsettling history. However, they say they are not surprised that ICE transferred Khalil to Louisiana, where access to counsel is extremely limited, and where the courts skew conservative,” the Verite News article continued.
More recently, Furman ordered that Khalil’s case be moved from New York to New Jersey, since that’s where Khalil was being detained when his lawyers first filed a motion challenging his arrest. Furman also denied the Trump administration’s request to move the case to Louisiana, where Khalil is currently being detained, but there’s still a chance that the case could end up there.
In his first public statement since being arrested, Khalil recently released a letter which was dictated over the phone to his lawyers. In the letter, Khalil refers to himself as a “political prisoner” and says that his arrest “was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza”. Toward the end of the letter, Khalil also states that “The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”
The Threat to Free Speech
Throughout this situation, there has been an ongoing argument over whether the US government has the right to arrest and deport legal immigrants due to their speech. I have seen many people claim on social media that the Constitution doesn’t apply to immigrants — even those who entered the country legally — but this is false. The First Amendment applies to everyone within the US, including non-citizens.
However, as a recent CBS News article explains, “There are a number of reasons why an individual could lose their green card and be deported.”
The article continues:
Most cases occur because a green card holder commits a crime, including violent crimes, marriage fraud, controlled substance abuse and other offenses. If they are convicted, typically after they serve their sentence in the U.S., they would face removal proceedings that involve going before an immigration judge, [immigration law expert David Leopold] said.
A person can also lose their permanent resident status because of "substantiated charges of immigration fraud in the immigration process," Elora Mukherjee, a Columbia Law School professor and director of the university's Immigrants' Rights Clinic, said.
At the time of his arrest, Khalil had not even been accused of a crime — let alone tried and convicted of one. It seems reasonable to presume that the only reason for his arrest and potential deportation is that he engaged in political speech that the Trump administration doesn’t like, which is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Khalil has since been accused of immigration fraud, but seeing as it came weeks after his initial arrest, that accusation appears to be nothing more than a crude attempt by the Trump administration to retroactively justify their actions.
That same CBS News article goes on to explain the law that is being used against Khalil:
The Immigration and Nationality Act is a set of immigration law provisions enacted in 1952.
The act includes numerous grounds for deportation, including a provision that says a non-citizen "whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable."
A government document filed on March 9 and obtained by CBS News shows the Trump administration used this provision to argue Khalil is subject to removal from the United States.
Essentially, the argument against Khalil is that, by engaging in political speech and demonstrations critical of Israel’s war in Gaza and US support for it, he interfered with US foreign policy to an extent that warrants his current detention and eventual removal from this country. In my opinion, this is a clear example of the Trump administration attempting to suppress speech they disagree with by unjustly prosecuting someone who is not even accused of causing anyone any actual harm.
It’s no accident that this suppression of speech has begun with university students here on visas and green cards who also happen to be critical of Israel. In general, most Trump supporters are pro-Israel and are also predisposed to dislike university students and immigrants, so it was all too easy to get them to support the type of prosecution we’re seeing against Mahmoud Khalil. This is short-sighted, however, as abuses of government power often start with unsympathetic people or groups before eventually affecting the average person, which almost always inevitably happens.
Those who support the violation of the civil liberties of Khalil and others like him are weakening the protections for their very own civil liberties as well, and once they’re gone it’s damn near impossible to get them back.
More Arrests and Deportations
Khalil may have been the first instance of the Trump administration’s crackdown on legal immigrants who engaged in last year’s campus protests or otherwise voiced some sort of opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, but in the weeks since his arrest there have been many more similar cases. According to the AP, “More than half a dozen people are known to have been taken into custody or deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in recent weeks.”
It has also been reported by Reason that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked at least 300 student visas. The article includes some quotes by Rubio from a recent press conference during which he said “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.” Rubio also said “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not become a social activist that tears up our university campuses. And if we've given you a visa and you decide to do that, we're going to take it away.”
The Trump administration is clearly violating the First Amendment in order to shield the foreign government of Israel from mere criticism of its actions, as the thread that ties all of these cases together is that each of these people oppose Israel’s war in Gaza and US support for it. There is no good argument for why this policy is “America First”, and I would even argue that it actually weakens America due to the harm it’s causing to our core civil liberties.
It’s ironic and hypocritical for the Trump administration to be engaging in this massive suppression of political speech. During the four years that Trump was out of office, the Joe Biden administration engaged in a similar suppression of speech, and Trump and his supporters claimed to want to end Biden’s censorship and bring about a restoration of free speech.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order entitled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship”. The order states that the Biden administration “trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms”. It goes on to say that “Under the guise of combatting ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.”
Israel’s war in Gaza, which relies heavily on the US as we arm and fund Israel to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars, certainly qualifies as a “significant matter of public debate”, and by prosecuting students for speech critical of Israel, the Trump administration is without a doubt attempting to “advance the government’s preferred narrative” about that war, under the guise of “combatting anti-Semitism”. While only legal non-citizens have been the target of this suppression so far, they still have constitutionally protected rights that are being violated, and the actions the Trump administration has been taking will certainly have a chilling effect on free speech for every American citizen.
The right to free speech is not something that can be applied selectively. If one group’s speech can be suppressed, it’s only a matter of time before that suppression spreads to many more people and groups as well. The right to free speech has to be held on principle, meaning it must be granted to people with opinions and beliefs that many might find objectionable in order for it to persist. Otherwise, it will cease to exist in any form, and if we lose the ability to criticize our government and its actions then we can no longer claim to be a free country.
The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and others like him clearly shows that Trump, his administration, and many of his supporters do not believe in free speech as a principle, because if they did they wouldn’t be engaging in the very sort of behavior they claimed to oppose when it was being done by Biden and other Democrats.
If you don’t support free speech for people and ideas you disagree with, you can’t claim to support it at all.
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