Mahmoud Khalil could have been cooked up in a lab to offend — no, worse — to disgust me. And yet, despite temptation, I cannot endorse what the Trump administration is doing to him.
Based upon the postings of his group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Khalil, who was born in Syria, seems to hold grotesque opinions. CUAD, a leader of the anti-Israel protests on Columbia’s campus, has cheered the Oct. 7 pogrom that killed and maimed more than 1,200 Israelis, writing, “The act of Palestinian resistance on October 7, known as the Al-Aqsa Flood, breached Israeli security and made significant military advances,” adding that it was “a day that will go down in history.” Not a word of condemnation for the deaths of innocents, the rapes, the immolation of whole families, nor the kidnappings.
CUAD has lavished praise on others such as Ismail Haniyeh and Hassan Nasrallah, leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah respectively, which gives you a flavor of the movement. And while some members of the organization at first distanced themselves from a student, Khymani James, who posted an Instagram video telling university officials that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists,” CUAD’s leadership later thought better of it and issued an apology to James and to all individuals involved in the movement for Palestinian liberation it “alienated” by “compromising our values and tailoring our actions and narrative to the mainstream media.” In case there was any doubt, the letter also clarified that the group supports “liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.”
In addition to celebrating the suffering and deaths of Israelis, CUAD has supported acts of domestic terrorism in the United States, praising Casey Goonan, an arsonist who carried out attacks on a federal building and the University of California in 2024.
“CUAD stands in full support of Casey Goonan and all of our comrades who have bravely undertaken the call to escalate for Palestine,” the group announced in a statement.
Corrupt plan to punish speech Trump dislikes
If I were vested with plenary authority to decide who could come to the United States, I would turn away someone like Mahmoud Khalil, who not only participates in but leads an organization that cheers terroristic violence. But no one in America has that plenary authority; we have laws and procedures, and under those laws, Khalil became a legal permanent resident. As such he enjoys most of the rights of a citizen. As law professor Steve Vladeck has outlined, there are certain rare instances in which a green card-holder can be subject to deportation, as when “an alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” But the law goes on to specify that aliens should not be deported for opinions or actions that “would be lawful within the United States” unless “the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s (continued
presence) would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”
Perhaps our Gumby secretary of state would so certify, but that is an abuse of authority and a step toward tyranny. Khalil’s views are execrable, but he has committed no crime, and the government has made no showing that his continued presence compromises a “compelling” foreign policy interest. He is being targeted because he’s obnoxious and on the left. As Jonathan Chait notes, claims of fighting antisemitism ring a bit hollow from an administration that just intervened to free the Tate brothers, hired a deputy press secretary at the Department of Defense with a history of antisemitic posts, and is led by a man who dined with Ye and Nick Fuentes.
No, this is a salvo in a corrupt plan to punish speech Trump dislikes. Taking a law-abiding, legal permanent resident into custody for speech crimes is un-American. Nor is it the only attack on fundamental liberties perpetrated in the past couple of weeks. Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie is another frontal assault. The risible order attempts to punish the firm for representing “failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton” and hiring the political consultancy Fusion GPS, among other supposed offenses. The order instructs federal agencies to terminate contracts with firm clients and to forbid all employees of Perkins Coie to enter federal buildings.
Or consider the exiling of the Associated Press for declining to abide by Trump’s embarrassingly juvenile edict about the “Gulf of America.” Trump has also targeted another law firm, Covington and Burling, for representing Jack Smith. These flagrant assaults on American liberties are coming thick and fast and deserve our attention and alarm.
I won’t defend Mahmoud Khalil’s despicable views, but I will defend his rights.
We live in a country governed by law — or at least, we are supposed to. If Khalil is to be deprived of his liberty, it can only be through due process of law. We defend his rights because if his are not secure, neither are ours.
Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast.
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