Trump’s administration is trampling over basic civil liberties and even the federal judiciary in its attempt to quash the Palestine solidarity movement, explains John Clarke 

The arrest and threatened deportation of Palestine solidarity activist, Mahmoud Khalil, is enormously dangerous and it raises a series of vital considerations. The Trump administration wants to silence voices that speak out against Israeli genocide, but its conduct in this matter also threatens the right to dissent, even as it increases the level of uncertainty facing those living in the US as non-citizens. It also demonstrates the degree to which Trump is ready to act lawlessly and in defiance of judicial oversight. 

As he was completing graduate studies at Columbia University last year, Khalil played a leading role in pro-Palestinian protests, acting as a negotiator for the protest movement with the university administration. Supporters of Israel had called for him to be deported and, shortly before he was arrested, he wrote to Columbia, noting that, ‘I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that Ice or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.’ The university administration chose not to respond. 

Crackdown 

According to the Guardian, Khalil and his wife were returning to their university residence on 8 March, when an officer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) followed them into the building and ordered Khalil to come with him. Agents told his lawyer over the phone that ‘they were acting on a state department order to revoke his student visa. When informed he had a green card [giving him the right of permanent residency], the Ice agents said that, too, had been revoked.’ 

Khalil was taken to a holding facility in New Jersey but he was then transferred to another location in Louisiana, in an obvious attempt to make contact with his legal representatives as difficult as possible and in total disregard for his family situation. His wife will be having a baby very shortly and it will be very hard for her to visit him. 

The arrest has been justified in a fashion that raises serious concerns about the arbitrary abuse of power. The State Department has justified its conduct on the basis that it ‘has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.’ Very obviously, any level of disagreement with established US policy could be grounds for deportation if this approach to immigration enforcement were to be upheld. 

A judge has blocked deportation while considering the constitutionality of Khalil’s arrest. He remains in detention, though efforts to obtain bail for him are underway. It is clear that he was targeted by the Trump administration as an opening shot in a major campaign to deport supporters of the Palestinian struggle and to intimidate the movement of solidarity that has developed since the Gaza genocide got underway. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, told CBS News, on 17 March, that Khalil is ‘going to leave — and so are others … We’re going to keep doing it.’ He added that the administration would be revoking visas and green cards of ‘Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.’ 

The US is one of a number of countries that has passed reactionary legislation designating Hamas a terrorist organisation and making active support for it a criminal offence. Yet, it is striking that, while the Trump administration brazenly hurls the accusation of ‘Hamas supporter’ at Khalil, he faces no criminal charges whatsoever. Challenging Israel’s crimes is enough to warrant deportation as far as the present regime in the White House is concerned and this obvious reality has raised considerable alarm among those who defend civil liberties. 

Amnesty International USA reacted to Khalil’s arrest by declaring that the ‘arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student activist and lawful permanent resident, is the latest attack on human rights by the Trump administration. Each and every one of us – regardless of immigration status – has the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, and due process.’ 

Yet, there is every indication that Trump is very serious about proceeding with the attack. As Al Jazeera reports, last year’s Republican Party platform included a pledge to ‘deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.’ Trump signed an executive order on 20 January ‘calling for the removal of foreigners who bear “hostile attitudes” to US “citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles” or who support “threats to our national security”.’ 

On 30 January, Trump signed another order, falsely presented as an initiative devoted to ‘combating anti-Semitism in the United States,’ that instructed the Department of Justice to ‘protect law and order, quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.’ A key element of this crackdown involved ‘the removal of resident aliens who violate our laws.’  

Since the arrest of Khalil, US immigration enforcers have begun to expand their activity. They have arrested Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian student at Columbia and accused her of overstaying her student visa. Ranjani Srinivasan from India has also had her visa revoked for supposedly participating ‘in activities supporting Hammas.’ The misspelling of ‘Hamas’ seems to highlight the flimsiness of the accusation. 

Defying the courts 

The attack on pro-Palestinian activists is a particularly dangerous component of a broader effort to expand greatly the deportation of immigrants and to do so in ways that pay scant attention to established legal protections. In the middle of March, the administration deported over 200 Venezuelans that the right-wing president of El Salvador had agreed to hold in detention, as part of a deal he has made with the Trump administration. This action was undertaken under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, even though this legislation ‘is only operative in the context of a declared war.’ Common Dreams reported that there ‘was no due process for the more than 200 Venezuelans whom the Trump administration claims are gang members.’  

The deportations were carried out, moreover, despite the fact that a federal-court judge had temporarily blocked them. The administration has claimed that the deportees were already outside of US airspace and that the order therefore didn’t apply. This is disputed but, even if true, it’s is a dubious argument and there has been widespread condemnation of Trump’s readiness to override judicial oversight. 

The effort to crush Palestine solidarity and the frenzied effort to ramp up deportations are both strategic priorities for the Trump administration. It is very clear that it is ready to challenge the powers of the judiciary, in order to pursue these objectives, and that long-established constitutional balances within the US political system mean very little to Trump and his collaborators. 

As I pointed out in an earlier article for Counterfire, at ‘this particular moment in the US, the executive wing is moving to curtail judicial powers with very little in the way of challenge from the legislative side.’ Republican politicians are assisting Trump and a weak Democratic opposition is failing to mount any concerted challenge. 

Yet, there have been protests across the US to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil. Some 98 people were arrested when a demonstration was held inside Trump Tower in New York City and, at a demonstration outside the facility in Kentucky where Khalil is being held, one speaker declared that it’s ‘clear that a government that feels emboldened enough to kidnap a permanent resident with a green card from their home just for expressing a political opinion is a danger to all people everywhere. But instead of scaring us into staying inside, the audacity of the Trump administration’s attack has also made us bolder.’ 

Sections of the US ruling establishment are alarmed by Trump’s reckless course of action but judges and disgruntled politicians are not going to mount any decisive opposition. This will have to come in the form of working-class mobilisation and popular resistance. The prospects for the kind of mass struggles that must be taken up are increasing as the brutal implications of Trump’s agenda are revealed so starkly.