…Mahmoud Khalil, but the Trump administration's simultaneous crackdown on due process and free speech for legal immigrants clearly won't stop there. Khalil, a green card holder and former Columbia University grad student who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than a week ago, remains incarcerated in Louisiana—despite not having been charged with any crimes.
"The Trump administration possesses neither wisdom nor courage, and it is now in the process of using claims of antisemitism on campus as a justification for grave violations of due process and free speech," writes David French in The New York Times. French, a former First Amendment litigator, argues that this won't end with Khalil, and that "just as we rightly look back in shame at the excesses of McCarthyism, we will look back in shame at the excesses of this moment—if we permit anger at campus protests to overwhelm our commitment to due process and free speech."
The administration maintains that it has the power to revoke Khalil's green card and deport him because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests. Indeed, it's becoming clear that Khalil was targeted because of his speech, rather than any other conduct that might be reasonably construed as criminal behavior. "The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law," an administration official told The Free Press last week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has outlined a similarly broad view of the government's powers: "No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card," he said last week.
