Allow me to begin today’s column with a scenario: Government agents arrest a political opponent at their own home and detain them without filing any charges. The agents mislead the prisoner’s family about their whereabouts, holding them in a detention facility far away from loved ones. You might think that this story comes from Russia or any country that is now shorthand for authoritarian oppression—China, North Korea or Turkey would all be perfectly reasonable guesses. But, if you picked any of those countries, you would be mistaken. This scenario occurred right here in the United States.
If you’ve paid attention to the news lately, you’d know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been entering communities across the U.S. to find migrants to deport. This effort reached new levels when ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent pro-Palestinian activist and legal resident of the U.S., on March 9. Khalil was arrested inside his Manhattan apartment, where he lives with his wife who is a U.S. citizen. After the arrest, Khalil was transported to an ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana—nearly 1,400 miles away from NYC. The brazen detention of Khalil is an escalation of Trump’s hostile policies to both immigrants and political opponents—and pulled straight from an authoritarian playbook that hurts the population.
Khalil is a Palestinian immigrant who was born in Syria and arrived in the U.S. on a student visa in 2022, later becoming a green card holder and therefore a legal permanent resident. As part of this status, he has the right to work, live and travel within the country, as well as the right to free speech.
The Trump administration’s rationale for the arrest involved Khalil’s leading role in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, which occurred at the same time on many other university campuses in spring 2024 as a result of Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza. Khalil received a master’s degree from Columbia in December of 2024 and served as a negotiator between protesters and the university. That marked him as a major target for Trump, who crowed about his arrest, calling him “pro-terrorist” and vowing there would be “many” more arrests to come. Branding Khalil as being in line with terrorists was a crucial part of detaining him, as the government technically has the power to arrest and deport green card holders who threaten national security—although there is supposed to be a much longer process of deciding what meets this standard.
The implications of this reasoning are chilling. In detaining Khalil, the Trump administration has grossly violated the right to free speech, which is outlined in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Whether or not you agree with Khalil’s personal beliefs on the Israel-Hamas conflict, living in the U.S. means we should all be able to exercise that right. Trump has intentionally exploited that Khalil’s politics are controversial to cross into authoritarian territory. Democrats have been internally divided on how exactly to respond, with some progressives wholeheartedly throwing themselves behind Khalil’s cause and others careful to distance themselves from his views.
Trump has said that these arrests will not end with Khalil; they are part of a larger goal to crack down on student speech and a ‘liberal bias’ that Republicans have long perceived to be prevalent in universities. For Trump, this is a step into the muddy waters of political persecution. If this arrest goes unchallenged, it will embolden the administration to carry out further and even more brazen acts of authoritarianism, and more people will find government agents at their door.
Trump’s other goal is to demonize and destroy immigration. At this moment, lawyers working for the Trump administration are trying to strip Khalil of his green card and attempting to deport him. Even if the effort does not succeed in court, Trump has clearly demonstrated a philosophy that was previously veiled: Even if immigrants are here legally, should they be somehow deemed a threat, they are not safe from persecution.
Beyond the threats to free speech and to immigrant rights, however, there is also a deeply human cost to government-ordered arrests. Khalil was taken away from his wife, who is eight months pregnant and was also threatened with arrest, after he reportedly emailed Columbia over threats to his safety. She had been planning for the arrival of their baby, ready to start a new chapter with her spouse, just as Khalil was planning for the same. Now, she is desperately begging for him to be returned home—familiar territory for the spouses in other countries who have seen their loved ones ripped away from them. America should not be a place where this happens. It should not be a place where people have to worry that their political opinions might put them in danger of being arrested by their own government. It should not be a place where innocent family members have to campaign for the release of their loved ones.
Americans have long repeated the saying, “it can’t happen here,” referring to the idea that the U.S. could never be taken over by the tactics of dictatorial rule. Yet we are seeing it happen with the second Trump administration, and Khalil’s arrest is an important part of the growing shadow. Believe Trump when he says that there will be more arrests to come, and believe the signs of creeping authoritarianism. By exploiting immigration status to take a political prisoner, Trump has reached a critical tipping point on whether free speech is free speech, whether legal immigration is actually legal and whether the government will take care of its citizens and residents. The answer, at least for the autocratic Trump administration, is a resounding no. What that means for our longstanding democracy remains to be fully felt, but if this arrest is any indication, crackdowns on freedom and wellbeing are already in motion.
SCOTUS has ruled repeatedly that the right to free speech has never been absolute (Chaplinsky v New Hampshire is one example). And they have also ruled that aliens (which includes green card holders) can be deported if they express views that are dangerous to the public (Turner v Williams). Khalil is the spokesperson of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which has called for the “total eradication of Western civilization” and which celebrated the 10/7 attack on Israel as a “moral, military and political victory.” The AP wrote that CUAD purports to be anti-war, but “has also voiced support for leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Islamist organization designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group.” 8 USC 1182 is quite clear that an alien who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity” is in violation of the terms of their residency in the US. It may be unpopular to enforce laws that were not enforced previously, but calling it the downfall of democracy is demagoguery, plain and simple.
If the guy is promoting an anti American agenda (such as support for terror groups like hezbollah and Hamas), I’d say ship him out. It is unfortunate that he has a pregnant wife, but actions have consequences. UCONN might have characters like this too, in our midst. I remember seeing demonstrations near the library just a couple days after those October 7 2023 terror attacks, where people wore kaffiyahs over their face like a Palestinian terrorist would wear (Hamas, Al aqsa brigade, etc). There were many US citizens killed and kidnapped by Hamas in that 10/7 attack.
It would be like if some non citizen demonstrated in support of kkk, by wearing a white hood after kkk just killed and kidnapped thousands of people. I doubt anyone would write about deportation of that person marking a downfall of democracy!