The Larger, Chilling Significance of the Mahmoud Khalil Case

Access online version of this press release HERE

Washington, DC – The arrest and detention of Columbia University Palestinian activist and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil raises several troubling, larger implications. As the Washington Post reported yesterday, the Trump administration’s effort to deport Khalil rests solely on a determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio – “immigration officers provided no written evidence to support his deportation beyond Rubio’s determination.” As the Post wrote in a separate editorial, “The Khalil case is a threat to First Amendment rights”: “If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?”

Details of the case highlight the Trump administration’s plan to“use immigration enforcement as a tool to suppress” free speech, as Khalil’s attorney stated. As Ramya Krishnan, a senior staff attorney at Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute, told Politico: “the ‘political deportation’ hearkens back to ‘repressive moments in America’s history,’ such as the McCarthy era.” Relatedly, Tom Homan also made the alarming comments that ICE will “absolutely” look to deport other legal immigrants including other green card holders.

According to David Leopold, America’s Voice legal advisor:

“After locking him up and surreptitiously spiriting him off to a remote Louisiana prison, ICE finally revealed they’ve charged Mahmoud Khalil under INA 237(a)(4)(C), the Cold War era foreign policy deportation provision which requires only that Secretary of State Marco Rubio unilaterally determine Khalil’s presence would have ‘potentially adverse foreign policy consequences.’ No judge. No jury. Just Marco Rubio.

Importantly, ICE is using a law that doesn’t require Khalil to have done anything. No crime. No immigration violation. Just his presence in the U.S. and a unilateral determination by the Secretary of State is enough to trigger Khalil’s deportation, even though he’s a green card holder and married to a U.S. citizen.

Yet this law was meant to be used only sparingly and under exceptional circumstances. But that’s not what the Trump administration says they’re going to do. Social media posts by the President, the White House and Secretary Rubio trumpet their plan to use the provision widely to deport as many protesters as they can. So, it appears, under the Trump administration protesting on a college campus is extraordinary.

Nor is this about anything Mahmoud Khalil did. It’s about what he said and believes. Whether or not you agree with Mr. Khalil’s opinions, the troubling question is if he can be deported based on an arcane Cold War era law, then who is next? A green card holder protesting global warming, access to healthcare, or reproductive rights? Or simply a noncitizen who opposes a Trump policy? Nor should those of us who are U.S. citizens take comfort in our legal privilege. If the Trump administration normalizes what it’s doing to Khalil it will succeed in chilling the speech of all Americans.”

Also see quotes from Leopold in a CBS News explainer about the case.

Read the Washington Post editorial, “The Khalil case is a threat to First Amendment rights,” with several key excerpts below:

“If President Donald Trump gets away with deporting him, as he intends, the danger is that more legal immigrants — possibly U.S. citizens as well — will be punished for exercising their First Amendment freedoms.

…Nothing about this case is ordinary. Khalil was taken to an immigration facility in New Jersey and then swiftly moved 1,300 miles away to the LaSalle Detention Center near Jena, Louisiana … Immigration authorities can move detainees in their custody, but they haven’t explained the decision to move him so far from his family and legal counsel. … If the case proceeds there and Khalil appeals the decision, it will go to the Trump-friendly U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which immigration advocates call the “anti-immigration pipeline.” In New York, an appeal would end up in the more liberal 2nd Circuit.

…If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?”