Trump administration seeks to deport green card holder who led violent protests at Columbia

I hope it succeeds

Federal authorities have arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel activist who helped spearhead violent pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University last year. The government plans to deport him. A federal judge has ordered that Khalil not be deported until he has heard his case. In the meantime, Khalil is being detained in Louisiana.

Khalil is not a U.S. citizen. He does have a green card, but is still considered an “alien,” albeit a legal one.

This means that under the Immigration and Nationality Act, he is “deportable” if “the Secretary of State [has] reasonable ground to believe that [his]. . .presence or activities in the United States. . .would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

It’s reasonable to believe that activities supporting Hamas, a designated terrorist group since 1997, have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S. Terrorism, by its nature, has such consequences.

Moreover, it’s bipartisan U.S. foreign policy to help protect Israel from groups like Hamas that seek its destruction. It’s also bipartisan U.S. foreign policy to support Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas and obtain the release of American hostages.

Thus, it’s not surprising that, according to Ilya Shapiro, the Biden State Department told then-Sen. Marco Rubio that it could revoke the visas of Hamas supporters. And even Laura Coates, a liberal attorney, opined last night that the law permits Khalil’s deportation.

However, the U.S. Constitution protects the free speech and free association rights of non-citizens. Thus, if all Khalil did was peacefully protest against the war in Gaza and speak out against Israel, there might well be a constitutional problem with deporting him.

But Khalil’s activism went further. News reports about his case describe his activity at Columbia as “protest.” However, it’s clear even from sympathetic accounts of what went down at Columbia that the protests he helped lead were not peaceful.

The protesters disrupted campus events. They set up an illegal encampment to block students from their normal campus activities, and refused an order from the president to disperse. Some breached, occupied, and vandalized Hamilton Hall. Hundreds more formed barricades outside the building’s entrances.

Protesters also harassed and threatened Jewish students. For example, pro-Israel protesters were told that they were Hamas’ next target.

Khalil was the leader of these non-peaceful protests. In fact, he was selected to negotiate with Columbia’s administration over the protesters demands that the university oppose Israel, including by divesting. Khalil’s role was to use the highly disruptive protests to extort concessions from Columbia.

Thus, as Andy McCarthy says, Khali wasn’t just engaging in political speech. He was also “pressuring the university to make concessions to the agitators’ pro-Hamas demands, with the understanding that if the administration did not capitulate, more and worse damage would be done on campus.”

And more and worse damage was inflicted. The breakdown of negotiations was announced on April 29, 2024. The occupation and vandalization of Hamilton Hall occurred in the early morning hours of April 30.

I’m not an expert in First Amendment law. However, it seems to me that speech intended to spread chaos, and to threaten more chaos if various demands helpful to terrorists and inimical to the foreign policy of the U.S. aren’t met, is not constitutionally protected.

The U.S. wants to deport Khalil not because he spoke out against Israel in strong terms. It wants to deport him for orchestrating actions that caused harm to the university he attended, jeopardized the safety of Jewish students there, and, had it succeeded, would have harmed our interest in opposing terrorism and supporting an ally in its fight against the worst kind of terrorists.

McCarthy urges us not to “check our common sense at the door” here. Let’s not.

NOTE: For a thoughtful discussion of this issue by someone who is an expert on the First Amendment, see this piece by Eugene Volokh. Eugene’s analysis doesn’t focus on the Khalil case specifically, but does address the issues it raises and Executive Order under which the government seeks Khalil’s deportation. He finds the law here “unclear.”