The Trump administration made good on its promise to start deporting foreign agitators operating on U.S. college campuses by arresting Syrian national and Palestinian Mahmoud Khalil last weekend. Khalil is the man behind the violent Columbia University Apartheid Divest riots at Columbia University in New York City.
Immediately, all of the usual suspects threw a fit, claiming Khalil has First Amendment rights as a green card holder and that he must be released immediately after being “kidnapped.”
“We intend to fully vindicate not just his First Amendment rights, but the First Amendment rights of all Americans who wish to speak out,” Khalil’s lawyer told reporters.
“The recent arrest of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil is a direct violation of our First Amendment rights. This is not just a Palestinian or Muslim issue—this is an American issue,” the Council on Islamic Relations, a group tied to Hamas and whose leaders celebrate terrorism, added.
But this case has nothing to do with the First Amendment or free speech. Khalil is not an American citizen.
According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, any alien who “has engaged in a terrorist activity,” “has, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily harm, incited terrorist activity,” or is part of a “political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity,” qualifies for deportation.
A perfect fit for Khalil.
“Columbia University janitors were gripped with ‘sheer terror’ as a mob of violent anti-Israel protesters stormed Hamilton Hall and took over the building on April 30 — armed with hand-drawn floor plans and supply lists, says a longtime custodian for the Ivy League university,” the New York Post reported last year. “As dozens of rioters busted through glass and barricaded the entrances to occupy the historic university building, four janitors found themselves trapped inside and afraid, Henry Clemente, a head custodian for Columbia, told The Post.”
The hall was stormed in the name of the October 7 terrorist attacks and fliers from Hamas' communications office in Gaza were handed out to members.
“In a fawning November 7 Substack tribute, it described Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a ‘brave man’ who will live in the hearts of many. CUAD praised the October 7 Massacre as ‘Sinwar’s crowning achievement” because the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood was the very essence of what it is to resist ‘with what we have,’” the Jerusalem Post reports. “The act of Palestinian resistance on October 7, known as the Al-Aqsa Flood, breached Israeli security and made significant military advances. [This is] a day that will go down in history.”
The Biden administration allowed Khalil and others like him to run right over these laws and State Department rules. First, because many Biden officials have strong pro-terrorism beliefs, and second because many of Biden’s donors were funding the riots.
“The donors include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker,” POLITICO reported last year. “Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”
Further, the Biden administration had no interest in exposing where other funding and material for the riots came from. Unfortunately for them, the Trump administration cares.
“Three Israelis who were held as hostages by Hamas filed a lawsuit on February 21 against an American tax-exempt organization, People Media Project, alleging that it helped the Iran-backed terrorist organization coordinate with its allies on college campuses and media in the United States,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies reports. “The Seattle-based nonprofit is the publisher of The Palestine Chronicle, which the lawsuit claims provided the hostages’ captor, Abdallah Aljamal, with a platform to 'disseminate Hamas propaganda.'"
Foreigners like Khalil should never be allowed into the country in the first place. Trump’s policy to deport him and others like him is long overdue. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio clearly stated, visa and green card holders are guests. They don’t get to come in as a guest and then work to destabilize America by sowing hatred against others. That might fly in Syria, but we’re done tolerating it in the United States.
