Mahmoud Khalil has First Amendment advocates on his side. But facts and the law are against him.
Many people are up in arms over the Trump administration’s attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil. Prominent nongovernmental organizations, elected officials and public figures have taken the detaining of Khalil — a Syrian immigrant of Palestinian descent and lawful permanent U.S. resident — as a sign that the Trump administration is running roughshod over the First Amendment and the principle of free speech.
The hair-on-fire reactions to Khalil’s detainment, which his defenders have characterized as reprisal for his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University in New York, are not just overblown. They are completely misplaced. This is simply not a case that implicates free speech or the First Amendment. Undisputed facts, and the law that allows the U.S. government to deport even lawful permanent residents without a criminal conviction, make that abundantly clear.
First, consider the facts. No one disputes that Khalil was the face of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, an umbrella group for pro-Palestinian campus organizations opposed to “the Zionist project” during CUAD’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Columbia in April last year. Although he recently told The Post he is not affiliated with CUAD, when CUAD protesters occupied a building at Barnard College, Khalil spoke for them to the administration. His attempt to disassociate himself from CUAD now warrants skepticism.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Washington Post
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Tal Fortgang is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He was a 2023 Sapir Fellow.
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