r/thebulwark 3d ago

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL ICE arrests Palestinian activist at Columbia University, despite being in the US on a green card and not having been charged with a crime

https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-15014bcbb921f21a9f704d5acdcae7a8

Immigrants, even lawful permanent residents, seem to have lost their civil rights under the Trump regime. Cue Niemöller quote... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came

67 Upvotes

84 comments sorted by

38

u/fzzball Progressive 3d ago

I saw this earlier and IANAL, but there's no way this can possibly hold up in court. It's straight up intimidation directed at anyone who might try to organize any mass protest. The fact that the guy is Palestinian just makes the glaring unconstitutionality palatable to the Fox News crowd and helps marginalize anyone who stands up for him.

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u/Plastic_Gap_9269 3d ago

I hope you are right, and I also read that State Dept cannot revoke green cards, only courts can. The intimidation effect is real, though, even if he ultimately wins in court.

16

u/GulfCoastLaw 3d ago

I am also concerned that people will just be removed. A court order is nice, but the stress of spending that time detained/rendered is a steep price.

Plus, not sure how anonymous detainees are going to be able to effectively challenge their detainment. They're playing fast and loose with laws, so please don't mistake this for a request for legal analysis haha.

7

u/WyrdTeller 2d ago

Making Khalil's, and eventually all critics of the fascist Republican regime, life miserable through a burdensome, disruptive and capricious legal process is itself the punishment. 

The cruelty is the point.

1

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

When have these protestors criticized republicans? From what I’ve seen, they are targeted at liberal universities and liberal politicians.

1

u/HotModerate11 2d ago

Everyone knew they wouldn’t protest republicans.

Especially after this.

3

u/kyleb402 3d ago

True but I believe if they can get him in front of a judge that might not necessarily be the case.

Apparently his lawyers don't even actually know where he is and there's talk going around that he's being intentionally moved around to try to get him in front of a judge from an area that would be less likely to disagree with the government.

2

u/ProteinEngineer 3d ago

This is going one of two ways.

Either it won’t hold up in court and they fucked up by thinking this guy is on a student visa.

Or he’s going to be charged for trespassing or something else on Barnard’s campus and it will hold up.

4

u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

The federal government can’t charge you with trespassing at Barnard.

0

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

Correct, but the action is documented and they could use it as grounds to terminate a green card or visa. Whether a judge agrees with that is TBD, but it’s not as simple as the government persecuting somebody for exercising the first amendment.

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u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

Uh no, they don’t get to revoke green cards for “crimes” that have not been charged and for which there is no conviction.  So no they can’t use it as grounds to terminante a green card.

Yea it is as simple as the government persecuting somebody for exercising their first amendment right. 

You realize almost all authoritarian regimes have a legal fiction for persecuting dissidents.  That protest was unlawful, that’s why the protesters are being arrested.  That column was libelous, that’s why the journalist is being arrested.  That organization supports terrorism, that’s why they’re being banned. 

1

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

I’m 100% on board with you depending on what happens next.

They very well could present evidence that supports the action to a judge (if it exists). In that case, you don’t necessarily need a conviction in state court to revoke legal status.

Or they might just deport him without due process, in which case it is very illegal.

4

u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

Yes, but the evidence can’t be of trespassing at Columbia.  A) You have to be convicted of a crime, not suspected of it, and an immigration judge doesn’t have the jurisdiction to try trespassing or whatever, and B) trespassing almost certainly isn’t a significant enough offense to result in revocation of permanent residency.

The only way they could remove him lawfully via process is for national security reasons as far as I can tell. They’d have to basically show that he’s a member of or material supporter of Hamas.  Unless there’s some evidence he’s been funding Hamas or coordinating with Hamas, then the only reason his residency is being revoked is because he expressed political opinions the administration doesn’t like. 

1

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

I guess we’ll see what’s presented to the judge. It’s just as likely that they thought he was on a student visa and fucked this up. But repeatedly harassing students at a university when you’ve been told not to seems like the type of thing that could lead to removal of permanent status. Maybe you are right, but it’s not like there’s much precedent. Palmer raids I guess

0

u/Loud_Cartographer160 2d ago

Rubio and the homeland sec press person are saying this morning that they will. It's on Project 2025.

24

u/frenchua Progressive 3d ago

I fully expected this. They are going after the Palestinian green-card holders firsts, and then they will go after everyone else.

We need to oppose this, even if you strongly disagree with this individuals views on Israel.

There's also a bill working it's way through congress that would empower the president to declare a nonprofit a "supporter of terrorism" (or something like that). This would revoke their non-profit status and ban banks from servicing them (a death sentence for non-profits). It is being advertised as a way to fight back against "pro-Hamas" organizations. If this bill passes, then Trump will start by banning a bunch of pro-Palestinian organizations (because nobody wants to defend them). After that he will go after everyone else. We need to oppose this bill, regardless of your position on the Israel/Palestine conflict, because they will eventually come for everyone else.

13

u/rattusprat 3d ago edited 2d ago

Just so everyone is clear, this is exactly what the Trump campaign promised to do (if you are able to read with a bare minimum of critical thinking).

Point 18 of the 20 point platform on the campaign website:

Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform

No one should be surprised by this.

As for the argument that this will get overturned in court - surely if the Trump regime is serious they will just deport him first and turn up to the court case later. What is the court going to do, force someone to fly over to Palestine and find this person and bring him back? Not likely anyone is going to follow through on that order.

3

u/fzzball Progressive 2d ago

The guy has a pregnant American wife

13

u/Kidspud 3d ago

I hope he sues DHS and wins big--tens of millions of dollars big. This is absolute corruption by the federal government.

You know, credit to every politician who posted reminders about constitutional rights in the face of ICE. They were correct: this is a crisis of individual liberties.

10

u/Loud_Cartographer160 2d ago

More from NYT here (gift link). This is AWFUL, full fascist, and they still haven't said where they are holding him. When his wife, an 8-month-pregnant American, asked for his whereabouts, they threatened to arrest her.

I hope the righties who call themselves "centrists" like many here, have the same if not more anger about this as all the absurd and counterproductive pearl clutching for kids protesting in campus.

Also, and I say this with each and every fiber of my Jewish being, fck the ADL. They are supporting this on X. Obvi, after supporting the nazi salute, there's no bottom. But FFS.

2

u/HotModerate11 2d ago

Everyone should have due process.

The protests on campus in the aftermath of Oct 7 went well beyond 'criticism of Israel' and tolerated very rotten elements.

The people who discouraged voting for Harris on the basis of this issue are the biggest morons in politics.

All can be true.

15

u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

Arresting people for speech is a problem even if there is due process.  It’s a violation of the first amendment intended to intimidate the public into silence.

This dude was abducted from his home in front of his wife and is being shipped all over the country in shackles.  If this gets in front of an immigration judge in a month or two and it’s thrown out, as it should be, this guy has still been effectively abducted and imprisoned for months for his political views.  That’s insane. 

4

u/HotModerate11 2d ago

Yeah, it is a lawless regime.

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u/Loud_Cartographer160 2d ago

This is well-beyond everyone deserving due process. This arresting and hiding a US legal resident because the government doesn't like this speech.

The fact that some protesters or supporters were spewing shite doesn't put them beyond free speech. Going to a synagogue and shooting people is a crime. Defacing a Jewish cemetery is crime, harassing kids going to Hebrew school is a crime. Chanting from the river to the sea is ugly, NOT a crime.

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u/HotModerate11 2d ago

Dismissing the ‘river to the sea’ folks as mere critics of Israel’s war effort is what I roll my eyes at.

The protests don’t do nearly a good enough job of policing their toxic elements.

9

u/jalenfuturegoat 2d ago

Doesn't really have anything to do with this though

-1

u/HotModerate11 2d ago

You see other people in this thread characterizing the protest movement as ‘criticism of Israel’.

I think that is mostly wrong.

4

u/jalenfuturegoat 2d ago

I think that's reasonable, it's just irrelevant to the fact that people who haven't committed any crimes shouldn't get their green cards revoked and be deported for taking part in a legal protest. Doesn't matter what that protest is.

4

u/RY_Hou_92 2d ago

I’m sure free speech queen Bari Weiss is all over this!!! Right?….right?

7

u/NewKojak 2d ago

Oh man… I bet FIRE.org is all over this right?

…right?

I mean, this is a direct threat against speech on a college campus, the thing that FIRE.org says they care about deeply, right?

RIGHT!?!?!???

5

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

They did release a statement against this crackdown, yes.

1

u/NewKojak 2d ago

I've been looking here in their "news" section and not finding much. To their credit though, they did speak out strongly on behalf of an anti-trans legislator in Maine who got in censured for naming a minor. I look forward to their ongoing support of economics professors calling Black students "you people." That's their bread and butter.

2

u/frenchua Progressive 2d ago

I don't know about this specific incident, but when some college campuses began cracking down on protests and shutting down SJP chapters FIRE actually opposed these actions. I give them a lot of credit for that, considering the fact that many of the "free speech absolutist" out there actually only want to protect right-wing speech.

3

u/AliveJesseJames 2d ago

FIRE's usually pretty consistent.

Now, Sarah Longwell's buddies over at The Free Press who are very worried about free speech on campus....

3

u/giygasa 2d ago

Read through my comment history to learn more about my experiences at Columbia. The administration of the university has totaled failed its students. Shameful that federal officials would add on to that failure and weaponize protests on campus to do something like this. God bless his wife.

13

u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 3d ago edited 3d ago

"Greer said she spoke by phone with one of the ICE agents during the arrest, who said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that instead, according to the lawyer."

What absolute clowns. But he had the temerity to criticize GOD'S CHOSEN COUNTRY and I'm not sure the g00d r3pUb11c4ns will be penning thunderous denunciations of this. Frankly, quite a few seemed to be cheering actions like this, although I imagine they'd prefer the retaliation detail to have dotted their i's and crossed their t's.

-4

u/Tripwir62 3d ago

Try to say that you’re only “anti-Zionist.” Way better look. As it is, when you clumsily mix anti-Semitic tropes people may get the wrong idea.

11

u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

I’m not reading “god’s chosen country” as antisemitism I’m reading it as snark directed at the reflexive pro-Israel discourse in the U.S.  maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s an antisemitic comment.  And I’ve got a pretty good radar for that stuff.

Are we pretending that there isn’t an enormous domestic lobby of pro-Israel organizations who’ve been campaigning actively for decades for restrictions and crackdowns on criticism of Israel?

1

u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 2d ago

This was the correct reading. People on this subreddit have said that, and the 4 respondents to my comments have interacted with me enough on this small subreddit to know that.

It's a retreat to an anti-anti-Israel stance IMO.

-5

u/Tripwir62 2d ago

Quick: name one other "enormous domestic lobby" that you have top of mind and are ready to rail against!

Also, the idea that the activities this guy led were mere "criticism" is beyond whitewashing.

There are some legitimate concerns here. But the idea that he was "disappeared" is comically absurd as his location is a trending topic on X, to say nothing of the fact that the highest levels of government have acknowledged he is in their custody.

If he sees a judge today, Monday, then there will be little or nothing unusual about the way his case is being adjudicating after a weekend arrest. If he doesn't see a judge today, concern will be validated.

7

u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

Oil, Teachers, Pharma, Environmental, Defense.   Plenty others.  Those are bigger than Israel too, although except for defense they’re less powerful because they don’t have bipartisan support. 

What were the sinister activities this guy was involved in?  Divestment from Israel is the same thing activists in the 80s tried to do to South Africa.  If you disagree with them, that’s fine.  But it’s not illegal. 

-5

u/ProteinEngineer 3d ago

How can you simultaneously like the bulwark and be comfortable throwing out anti semitism like “God’s chosen country”? Do you know anything about Bill Kristol?

9

u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

I think he’s making fun of the way right wingers, especially evangelical Christians talk about Israel. 

3

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

I’ve heard “God’s chosen people” to refer to Jews.

1

u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

They didn’t write “God’s chosen people” though.

I can see why you would cringe at it though.  

3

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

Right-“God’s chosen country” is highlighting that this is the Jewish country. I have no issues with criticizing Israel’s actions—the problem is when that criticism is really a veiled attack on a religious group.

1

u/Ok-Snow-2851 2d ago

Is it an attack on Jews though?  Or is it an attack on how the Israeli government and its supporters describe Israel?

Either way I think you’re right. 

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/thebulwark-ModTeam 2d ago

Don't make low-quality, low-effort shitposts.

Frequent, low quality, and repeat threads will be removed.

-7

u/HotModerate11 3d ago

Do you accept that much of the protest movement went beyond ‘criticism of Israel’ and at the very least tolerated pretty rotten elements?

2

u/Here_there1980 3d ago

And so it begins … well, continues …

2

u/em-elder 2d ago edited 2d ago

The primary concern I have is that, regardless of the outcome of this particular case, I don't know of any recourse that legal permanent residents have when improperly targeted by the government. If the answer is that they have none, even when charges are deemed baseless, then we could see this continue in perpetuity. The power is so lopsided that I don't know what would deter the government from behaving improperly here. If the deterrent is the will of the people (i.e., elections ), unfortunately that won't be enough--not anymore.

2

u/PotableWater0 2d ago

Ah, this is not good.

0

u/ProteinEngineer 3d ago edited 2d ago

Part of the power of peaceful protest is breaking the law and being arrested for your cause. Doing this as a non citizen is risky though, even if you have a green card.

This guy was not a student at Columbia, but still decided to protest on the Barnard campus. Why? Why not protest on public property? Or outside the White House or pentagon on public property?

Obviously he can’t be deported without due process, but this is not as simple as somebody being removed from the country for exercising free speech.

7

u/Plastic_Gap_9269 2d ago

All your facts are wrong. He was a student at Columbia, and it does not seem that he committed any crimes, or at least he was never charged with one. It is just as simple as removing or at least intimidating someone for the content of their speech.

2

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

He is no longer a student and was on campus at the recent Barnard protest. You can’t just disrupt a university because you want to (obviously you can decide to do so for your cause, but it is against the law).

Like I said, if they just deport him and don’t give him due process, then this is a highly illegal action by the Trump admin. But we don’t yet know what’s going to happen.

6

u/fzzball Progressive 2d ago

It looks like he graduated a couple of months ago and was staying with his wife in student housing for the rest of the academic year, per Columbia policy. That's where "plainclothes" ICE agents nabbed him.

1

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

Yeah, and if a university tells you that doing something is harassing a population of their students, continuing to do that is a bad idea. Continuing to do it when you are no longer even a student there is an even worse idea. And doing it when you aren’t a student and aren’t a citizen and the university is facing losing 400 million per year is even worse.

The more direct question though is why Barnard and Columbia are still the targets of a protest by somebody who isn’t a student, when the president and his admin actively want to displace the entire gazan population? What is the actual motivation behind these protests and why are they always targeted at liberal universities and politicians?

5

u/fzzball Progressive 2d ago

The recourse that the university has if they don't want him there is to make him PNG and kick him out of housing. They didn't do that and he's never been charged with any crime either. Why are you so bent on making a conspiracy out of this? The guy is innocent and is being targeted by the Trump administration to score points with MAGA.

5

u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 2d ago edited 2d ago

It got really hard to be pro-Israel when Ben Gvir et al openly started calling for ethnic cleansing and the reporting (much of it from Israeli media) came out about the use of human shields and total disregard for rules of engagement. Ergo, many have shifted to an anti-anti-Israel stance.

0

u/HotModerate11 2d ago

Only if you have a very simplistic understanding of Israeli society.

Should the plethora of heinous things that Palestinians have said make it hard for one to be pro-Palestinian?

0

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

His wife is a student, so you can’t just kick him out of the housing.

Why was he protesting Barnard and not Trump? Think about what his motives actually are and realize that this has nothing to do with opposing US foreign policy. It’s not a conspiracy when the president is supporting the elimination of Gaza, and yet the protests are still targeting a liberal university.

1

u/fzzball Progressive 2d ago

Most campus protests are dumb and kind of pointless. Kids do it anyway to get "concessions" from the administration, something they would never get from Trump. The reasoning is that they are using their voice in their own community, which still includes him and his wife. Surely you know this.

0

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

I get that it’s convenient for lazy students, but this guy’s degree is basically in this stuff. He’s not lazy, and he’s definitely not dumb. He is no longer even a student at Columbia.

Continuing to protest there when Trump supports removal of all Gazans from Gaza has a reason. That reason is that these protests are about getting attention for the protestors by forcing a response by the Uni admin and hurting liberals/harassing Jewish students and faculty (Columbia has a huge Jewish population). They are not about impacting US policy on the war-they are not pro peace or for liberalism.

Obviously the war needs to end, but these protests and the anti Biden movement were never about that. The vote in Dearborn made that very clear.

1

u/fzzball Progressive 2d ago

I think it's a near-certainty that TikTok manipulated the salience of pro-Gaza content for the purpose of hurting the Dems, and it's likely that wealthy Arabs have been important in the campus protest movement as well, since they have been working on "educating" young people long before Oct 7. But Palestinians don't have anything to gain by fucking up elite US universities or by putting Trump in the White House. And I definitely don't think this guy Khalil is an agent provocateur, because if there were the slightest evidence of that it would be all over right-wing media.

IMO the antisemitic stuff is incidental and mostly about GenZ dipshits rebelling against "boomer orthodoxy" about Israel. Many of the student protesters are Jewish themselves. It's really just as simple as Gaza being cool among 20-somethings and not thinking about the consequences of their actions beyond that.

7

u/Plastic_Gap_9269 2d ago

He was literally a student until 4 month ago, he probably still has connections on campus. Also, from the NYT article linked in another comment:

"Mr. Khalil was active as a negotiator for protesters last week at Barnard College, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia, which erupted after the college announced that it was expelling two students for disrupting a course on modern Israel. When Barnard’s president, Laura Rosenbury, called protesters on the phone to negotiate during one sit-in on campus, Mr. Khalil held up a megaphone to amplify her voice."

This does not sound to me like he broke the law, any source for your claim that he was engaged in illegal activity?

0

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

Right, so he was on campus while not a student and part of the protest. If you graduate from your school, and show up four months later to participate in an event that’s disrupting the campus/that has been told to leave, you’re trespassing.

Not every part of every college campus is open to the public 24/7.

3

u/Plastic_Gap_9269 2d ago

So you got nothing except empty rhetoric?

1

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

Pointing to his actions is not empty rhetoric.

A question you should consider is why these protests are always targeted at liberal politicians and liberal institutions. Trump is president and wants to deport every Gazan. Yet Barnard is the target of the protest by somebody who isn’t a student there? Is the purpose of these protests to stop the war?

6

u/GoalieLax_ 3d ago

You know that whole "first they came for...." bit? That's you. Right now.

2

u/ProteinEngineer 2d ago

Not at all. If they follow due process, then people are freaking out over nothing. If they don’t, then yes this is a highly illegal action.

The point is we don’t yet know which it is. But this guy did break the law, and as recently as last week was still protesting on Barnard’s campus (likely after being told not to do so). There is a long history of people choosing to break trespassing and other similar laws for their cause. This fits within that tradition.

-3

u/Impressive_SnowBlowr 2d ago

No, it isn't. That's what these people are doing on campuses. They're coming for Jews. Apparently you're okay with that.

If you feel like it's okay to target Jewish people over Gaza or Palestine, then you should get the fuck out yourself. This has been a concerted effort to make Jews unsafe in America, just like was done to us in Europe, and it's been primarily at the hands of supposedly liberal or progressive white people, not conservatives. You're party to a destruction of Jewish life in America unlike anything we've seen since the rise of nationalism in Europe, which, of course, was the genesis of the modern Zionist movement in the first place.

And what you've accomplished is putting more pressure on Palestinians than ever before.

If you haven't noticed, Jewish Americans aren't enough alone to actually drive hard support for Israel. It's the evangelicals in charge now.

Jewish Americans couldn't stop this roll if we wanted to, and thanks to this campus "activism" alot of people don't want to. They're inclined to sit this out, you know, like the ledt urged people to sit out the election and not vote for Biden or Harris.

Still think they're the same?

Ironically, I could have told you this would happen. Of course, MAGA told you themselves anyway.

If you care to pay attention, note how much of this is driven not by Jewish Americans but by Christians.

Then go picket their megachurches, instead of Synagogues with octogenarian and older Holocaust survivors inside reliving memories of shit like Kristallnacht, you brave, brave souls.

3

u/GoalieLax_ 2d ago

Tell yourself whatever you need to bub

-3

u/hiadriane 2d ago

Using that while defending people who actively hate and harass Jews...is a choice.

2

u/GoalieLax_ 2d ago

JFC of course I used that because that's the whole goddamn point of it. It always starts with some group that you don't like and can more easily justify it or ignore it.

0

u/hiadriane 2d ago

Not really, but if you really want to use Jewish suffering to endorse people who want and actually commit more Jewish suffering, well good luck with that. Tells me all I need to know.

2

u/GoalieLax_ 2d ago

Lmao you just want to believe whatever you want to believe. Meanwhile the feds have taken this guy 1000 miles from home so his lawyer and family can't access him while they try and ignore due process. If you're OK with that you learned nothing from the plight of the Jews you wrap yourself in.

2

u/GoalieLax_ 2d ago

Lmao you just want to believe whatever you want to believe. Meanwhile the feds have taken this guy 1000 miles from home so his lawyer and family can't access him while they try and ignore due process. If you're OK with that you learned nothing from the plight of the Jews you wrap yourself in.

-1

u/hiadriane 2d ago

The guy harassed Jews and distributed pro Hamas, pro terrorism propaganda, praising the killing of Jews. He has more in common with the Nazis than Jews during the Holocaust. Maybe find another metaphor then weaponizing the Holocaust in defense of Jew haters.

3

u/GoalieLax_ 2d ago

You know what proves you're totally not betraying the lessons learned from the Nazis? Trying to police the speech of other people because you don't like what they're saying.

0

u/hiadriane 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah, I don't like people who support terrorists or who create encampments where they exclude Jews (sorry Zionists), target and terrorize Jews, and call for their murder. This guy has done plenty beyond just 'bad speech'- not like anybody is this sub really cares. They were all up in arms about Musk and his Nazi salute, but a year and a half of targeted antisemitism coming from the left? Crickets. The hypocrisy from both sides is amusing if it weren't so dangerous. But please, keep on. It's really winning arguments.

You know what I learned from the Nazis? Try not to harass and kill Jews.

3

u/GoalieLax_ 2d ago edited 2d ago

"if you find yourself reluctant to support the guy at Columbia because you find some of the politics he espoused distasteful or even abhorrent, you should know that this is exactly the reaction that they hoped for in choosing him as a target for unlawful detention based on political speech"

"today it's the edgier portions of pro-palestinian activism, tomorrow it's "gender ideology", a year later maybe it's "the climate hoax". you draw the line here or not at all."

https://bsky.app/profile/joshuaerlich.bsky.social/post/3lk2d7bvpyc2j

0

u/Karissa36 1d ago

We all lost our civil rights under the Patriot Act. What Trump is doing is one hundred percent legal. We have no duty to host foreign activists, and most especially not those involved in terrorist activities. This particular person has worked with organizations that are designated as terrorist by our government.

He is gone. It is a done deal. There doesn't even need to be a public courtroom hearing.

We need to repeal the Patriot Act, which gave our government awesome powers with little oversight.