A Vermont judge on Monday, April 14th, ordered President Trump not to remove pro-Palestinian activist, Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi from the United States or take him out of the state of Vermont. Mahdawi was arrested upon arriving for an interview for his U.S. citizenship petition.
The circumstance of Mahdawi, also Palestinian, are similar to those of activist Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student who was detained on March 8 and taken to a Louisiana detention facility for deportation. But a U.S. immigration judge in Louisiana ruled on Friday that Khalil can be deported.
While critics on the Left in the U.S. and in the UK argue that the actions of the Trump administration against figures like Khalil are attacks on free speech rights protected by the U.S. constitution, the truth is that Khalil and his ilk have likely committed fraud in their visa applications in the first place. That form asks: “Have you ever, or do you intend, to provide financial assistance or other support to terrorists or terrorist organizations?” As the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle reminds, less than a year after arriving at Columbia on a student visa, Khalil was leading American undergraduates in actions in support of Hamas after the October 7 massacres. Khalil was involved in illegal occupations of buildings, served as the negotiator on behalf of the occupying students with the university, pressuring the administration to accommodate student demands based on their illegal activity, and helped organize an illegal encampment on the campus that denied access to “Zionist” students.
