Forced disappearance, kidnapping, political imprisonment – take your pick. These terms all describe what has happened with the Trump administration’s first arrest for thought crimes, something that should never happen in a democracy.
But it has, to Mahmoud Khalil, a recently graduated master’s student from Columbia University’s school of international and public affairs. And for each minute that Khalil is held in detention, every one of us should feel like our own individual rights in this country are being shredded. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil is a barefaced attempt by the Trump administration to destroy free thinking while murdering due process and free speech along the way. This is an ominous development.
