‘They came for Mahmoud…’ — Placard held up at Foley Square protest in New York
By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — President Trump is lumping U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer together with pro-Palestinian student leader Mahmoud Khalil. He proclaimed last week that Schumer is no longer Jewish but is now a “Palestinian.” Four days earlier, his ICE agency set the stage to deport Khalil for possible support of Hamas.
It is always hard to discern separately what either Trump or the Palestinian movement is up to, and it is far more difficult now that they are on a collision course stemming from Khalil’s protest activities at Columbia University.
There are credible signs that Trump is doing right to investigate Khalil, who has morphed into an Arab superstar since he was arrested on March 8 at his Upper Manhattan apartment. It is part of Trump’s mission to deport foreigners who participate in anti-Israel activities.
Many of them have attended schools like Columbia University on student visas and participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and other illegal incidents. We allow them to benefit from the fruits of America while they disregard our laws. Trump claims we should not tolerate their actions, and he is right.
Let us swiftly dispense with Schumer’s faux betrayal of his own people. Trump recited these words last Wednesday – from the Oval Office: “Schumer is a Palestinian…he’s become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore. He’s a Palestinian.”
What a way with words, but we are used to that. How dare he speak that way about our fellow tribe member. Only we Jews can speak that way about our fellow tribe members. Is this one-time Presbyterian telling Schumer – and the rest of us – how we are supposed to behave as Jews? He is probably mirroring the attitudes of right-wing Jewish buddies who accompany him on the golf course.
Across the East River from Schumer’s home borough, Brooklyn, agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested the 30-year-old Khalil, who graduated in December from Columbia with a master’s degree from the School of International and Public Affairs and mysteriously whisked him off to a detention center in Louisiana.
News media sources reported that Khalil had not been previously arrested for any criminal offenses, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a statement accusing Khalil of having “led activities aligned to Hamas,” according to sources quoted in The New York Times.
Rubio relied on a clause in the Immigration and Nationality Act – from 1952 – that says any “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 is deportable.”
“This is a blatant attack on our freedom of speech,” said the progressive organization Justice Democrats in an email statement. “As Justice Democrats’ Rep. Summer Lee said, ‘Kidnapping an activist and jailing him in the middle of the night is a brazen act of authoritarianism. Punishing dissent by revoking legal status is a dangerous precedent to set.’”
Free speech, eh? Like “globalize intifada?” Or “F— Jews?”
Says our president: “There are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity…If you support terrorism…your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy, and you are not welcome here.”
This is no matter of freedom of speech, even though Khalil’s fans want to frame it that way. Even Trump and Rubio have yet to convey the full essence of this process.
We are at war. Arabs initiated hostilities by massacring 1,200 residents of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and are now attempting to justify it with protests throughout the world. They took these demonstrations beyond speech at illegal sites like encampments at Columbia, seizing a campus building, assaulting employees at Columbia and Barnard College, and harassing and threatening Jewish students.
These are criminal offenses. A crackdown should have been undertaken long ago. Many offenders were not prosecuted or were charged with lesser offenses, or any charges were dropped altogether. Those criminals who are not citizens should be subject to deportation, depending upon the severity of their offenses.
Trump has focused upon students like Khalid, of Palestinian descent, for their reported support of Hamas and other terrorist groups. This could be grounds for deportation, but it is not as definitive as a conviction for committing a crime.
That is where many protesters get lucky, and how ICE can be easily frustrated. Criminal prosecutions have been minimal, which undermines the current crackdown. The presence of criminal counts like trespassing, disorderly conduct, threats, reckless endangerment and assault may all be sufficient for the administration to go through with deportations.
Instead, they are for the most part stuck building their own cases.
Trump seems to be on the right track generally, though he has stumbled in processing Khalil’s case and he has abused his authority on many other issues. In Khalil’s case, there was confusion over whether he is in America on a student visa, but it turns out that he is a permanent resident with a green card and he is married to an American citizen who is eight months pregnant.
As a lawful permanent resident, Khalil is protected under the First Amendment free-speech rights and the Fifth-Amendment due-process rights, according to the Times.
What even Trump seems to ignore are the series of criminal offenses the anti-Israel mob committed in their wake. As a leader of the protest movement, Khalil must take responsibility for the acts of his followers. “When you lead an organization, you are accountable for your organization’s actions,” Columbia professor Shai Davidai told a Times reporter. “When you lead an organization that openly and proudly supports a U.S. designated terrorist, you are accountable to the spreading of propaganda.”
Khalil maintains that he never planned and led the protests, and at the same time he described himself as a spokesman and negotiator for a coalition of student groups.
Perhaps playing these roles frees him of responsibility. This guy has a way with words!
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.