Earlier this month, former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Khalil, a Syrian-born man whose parents are Palestinian, was one of the leaders of the antisemitic protests and eventual occupation of the grounds of the university in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist massacre of Israeli civilians.
Though he has a student visa and a green card, the Department of Homeland Security claims that on U.S. soil, Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas,” which the United States classifies as a terrorist organization.
His lawyers, anti-Israel Democrats, activist groups and, of course, the mainstream media have decried Khalil’s arrest and detainment as “unlawful.”
They’ve declared it a “violation” of First Amendment rights to protest the Israel-Hamas war, which was instigated by Hamas after the 2023 terrorist attack where more than 1,200 Israelis, including infants and the elderly, were brutalized and murdered.
The State Department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, doesn’t see it that way.
When asked by reporters last week about Khalil’s arrest and possible deportation, Rubio explained the rationale behind it.
“This is not about free speech. This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way,” Rubio said.
“So when you apply for a student visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason, but I think being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down and being complicit in what are clearly crimes of vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions — there are kids at these schools that can’t go to class,” he also said.
“You pay all this money to these high-priced schools that are supposed to be of great esteem, and you can’t even go to class, you’re afraid to go to class because these lunatics are running around with covers on their face, screaming terrifying things. If you told us that’s what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in. And if you do it once you get in, we’re going to revoke it and kick you out,” he concluded.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) put it another way when he was asked about the case in an interview.
“Mr. Khalil will receive due process because by now his lawyer has already filed a writ of habeas corpus. Mr. Khalil was involved in the protests. He was a Columbia student under the Immigration and Naturalization Act,” Kennedy noted.
“If you support a terrorist organization, you can be deported. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Mr. Khalil’s side of the story, I understand to be that ‘I don’t support Hamas, I just support Palestinians. All I did was post some Facebook posts. I wasn’t involved in any of the illegal protests or the illegal occupation of student buildings or physically intimidating the Jewish people and Jewish students.’ We’ll find out who’s right,” Kennedy observed.
“The Immigration and Naturalization Act, though, is fairly broad. And if the administration can show acts directly and probably indirectly supporting Hamas, they’ll deport him. And he should be deported if that’s what’s shown in court,” Kennedy also stated.
In other words, Khalil will have his day in court. But the case against him, as described by Rubio and others, is pretty strong, and if I were a leftist, I’m not so sure that I’d make this case my free speech hill to die on.
Just sayin’.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
