On the evening of last Saturday, a graduate student at the University of Colombia recently received his name, Mahmoud Khalil, in the hall of his apartment building, in the Moorenjaside highlands, by four agents of home security schools. They said that a student visa was canceled and that he was arrested, with a plan to deport him. Khalil, the Algerian citizen of Syria of Palestinian origin, was the leader of the protests in support of the events that consumed the life of the campus in Colombia last year. He called his lawyer Amy Jarir, and she spoke with one of the agents. When Jarir told him that Khalil did not have or need a student visa, because he is a permanent resident in the United States and has a green card, the agent said that the Ministry of National Security canceled his green card as well. When Jarir asked to see the arrest order, the agent commented.
Khalil is thirty years old, obtained a master’s degree in public administration, and once at the United Nations. (His wife, an American citizen of Syrian origin, is about to give birth) But Khalil held the position of the axes in the university administration, and in public data, he implemented anti -Semitism and insisted that the change in the government of Israel will represent the liberation of both Palestinians and Jews. Was this the battle that the Trump administration wanted to choose?
As it turned out, as soon as the administration clarified what it was, this was the exact battle that wanted. A White House official told Free press. A statement from the Ministry of National Security said, mysteriously, that Khalil “led activities to Hamas” and the formulation of decolving crucial discrimination between anti -Semitism and opposition to Israeli policy. The government’s deportation order relied on the 1952 Immigration Law, which allows the Minister of Foreign Affairs to cancel permanent residence from any person who rules the undermining of US foreign policy. The administration seemed ready to say Times Put it, make the American goal to combat anti -Semitism more difficult. He did not claim any specific procedures; It is clear that Khalil was simply deported because the administration did not like what he said.
Trump’s most extreme actions tend to appear simultaneously from political strength and weakness. At the present time, its strength derives from the absence of any effective political opposition in Washington, which allowed him to make deep discounts for many popular federal programs (awaiting judgments in court, in some cases). But the uselessness of these actions, and its endless introductory threats, disturbed the markets, and in a short short time, about a difficult economic view to one characterized by the possibility of a contraction. After Trump refused to exclude the recession, even Fox News, Peter Dossi asked sarcastically, at a press conference, if anyone in the White House was reducing Dow. Therefore, it is logical that the president takes a familiar issue of the campaign – Campus’s protests, especially in Colombia – where public opinion is believed to be by his side.
Trump’s problem is that Colombia, despite its history of student activity, is not commensurate with the right image of the revolutionary institution that is determined to teach DEI. The university’s reaction to the protests was partially by establishing a committee that might include its work from disciplining students who have, in the words of the Associated Press, “Criticism of Israel.” Thus political visits were indirect. First, the administration announced that it would eliminate at least four hundred million dollars as financing-conciliation, because the university’s failure to protect Jewish students, although it had an impact on overcoming federal support for a leading system that provides global health care for the poor New York residents. Then the government moved against Khalil. “We are not doing this for voting,” one of the White House advisers told AXios, explaining a new anti -artificial intelligence program that would search for social media for anti -Semitic or anti -Israel data that international students made, and whose visas will be canceled after that. “But it never hurts me to be on the right side of the case.”
If the Trump administration goes out on the wrong side of this battle, then it will be because defending freedom of expression is still a clear and strong principle. During the Biden administration, Republicans have repeatedly claimed that the conservatives were victims of censorship. Now they seem to be particularly excited to influence the flow of speech and ideas. Early in this winter, Trump prevailed on ABC to settle the lawsuit in which he accused his network, and his assistants have rotated correspondents of the outlets of the outlets of the dominant ports (AP, CNN) from the White House press seats in the White House for ideological alignment organizations. Even outwardly anti -flatulence DodgeAnd I noticed Veronique De Rugy in LibertAran a reason“It seems mostly moving by eradicating left -wing cultural policy in Washington.”
Moreover, Trump and his political allies were accidentally confused the words who did not like him with violence. Parliament Speaker Mike Johnson Khalil described as an ambitious young terrorist.
When it comes to the phrase of the president in freedom of expression, the liberals should be equally steadfast. A group of Progressive Congress members who have circulated a letter condemning Khalil’s deportation can obtain only fourteen signatures – a sign, perhaps, the extent to which Democrats are linked to the pressure of the protests. But defending Khalil’s right to speak does not require defending his views. Even Ann Colleter, conservative commentator at Firebrand, can see it. I wrote about the demonstrators: “There is almost no one I do not want to deport him,” but what they did not commit a crime, is this not a violation of the first amendment? ” that it.
On Monday, Trump said that the arrest of Khalil would be “the first of many.” By the time of the initial hearing of the Federal Court in New York City, two days later, Khalil was detained away from the procedures, in Ice The detention center in Gina countryside, Louisiana. Outside the Manhattan Court, hundreds of demonstrators gathered. Perhaps, like Trump, they understood that the issue of Khalil is not the end of a specific constitutional battle, but it is the beginning. ♦