Bulwark Takes - Student Arrested by ICE For Protesting on Campus

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Sam Stein and Adrian Carrasquillo discuss the arrest of Columbia student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil by ICE for protesting on campus as Donald Trump demands deportation for pro-Gaza students.

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datemyage.com Hey guys, me Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark. I'm joined by Adriana Carasquelo, who is the author of our Hufflepuff Masses newsletter. I'm sure you read it, but if you don't, you're a fool. Read it, Subscribe to it. Today, we're going to be talking about this really crazy case that happened over the weekend involving a graduate of, I think, yeah, he's a graduate of Columbia University. His name is Mahmoud Khalil. He was detained and arrested yesterday by ICE. Now, there's a lot of moving parts on this story. Adrian's going to talk about the mechanics here, about how they can go about doing this. And he and I are both sort of trying to figure it out ourselves. But to get you up to speed, I'm going

to go into both the New York Times and the Associated Press and what they've written about this story. These are articles, grant you, that came out yesterday. So they might be a tiny bit stale, but they give you a basic understanding of what's happening here. So Mahmoud Khalil was inside a university-owned residence, and this was on Saturday night. And that's when several immigration and customs enforcement agents entered his apartment. They took him into custody. His lawyer said that during the arrest, ICE asked to revoke his student visa. And then they were informed that, in fact, Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card.

And then the agent said they were revoking that too. Now, the reason Khalil was arrested is that he has led some of the very controversial protests on Columbia's campus against Israel and its conduct post-October 7th. He, according to the allegations against him, has expressed sympathy for Hamas. He's alleged to have been sympathetic towards the October 7th attacks themselves. And the Trump administration has pledged to deport international students who have protested against Gaza in the wave of protests that have rocked these college campuses. And their claim is that he is supportive of Hamas, which they have dubbed a terrorist organization,

and that because of that, the Secretary of State has the authority to revoke your status and put you into deportation proceedings. Here's where it gets even crazier. Khalil has a wife who's an American citizen. She's eight months pregnant. And for a period of time, she had no idea where he had been taken. And the lawyer for Khalil alleges that she was threatened with detention and arrest too. So the wife was initially told that Khalil had been brought to a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She went there, wasn't there. She thought he may have been transferred to Louisiana.

I believe don't I could be wrong that he ended up at an ice facility in Los Angeles. Adrian, is that correct? I think he was in Louisiana. So he's okay. He's in Louisiana. So that's where we're at. And obviously this is incredibly dicey, like incredibly dicey. Marco Rubio has gone onto Twitter and said, look, we will be revoking the visas and or green cards for Hamas supporters, of Hamas supporters in America so that they can be deported. That's the, that, that is there. They're not even hiding the ball. That's what they say. I will just know, and then I'll, I'll

shut up. But the department of Homeland security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that Mr. Khalil had been arrested, quote, in support of President Trump's executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism. She added, Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump's executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security. I just want to be clear. The quote is, led activities aligned to Hamas. It doesn't say he supported Hamas. It just said it was aligned to Hamas. And I feel like that's an important distinction. So Adrian, I just got to ask you, as far as you understand, like, what are the mechanisms

for doing something like this? Is this unprecedented? Yeah, I mean, I think this is unprecedented. Certainly in this administration, they said his executive orders, if you're, you know, being anti-Semitic, it's just, it's crazy because that first, like they said, the order they had said they would come from the White House. And then they suddenly said, oh, no, no, no. This order is coming from DHS.

There were so many moments during this situation where they seem to be flying by the seat of their pants. They say he has a student visa. And then actually, oh, no, no, no. When they find out from the lawyer that he has a green card. Yeah, we're revoking that, too. And they can do that as far. they find out from the lawyer that he has a green card yeah yeah we're revoking that too um and they can do that as far yeah so there's a law that authorizes deportation from the secretary of state and i think that's why rubio got involved uh with sharing the tweet where he said he posted on exon

sunday we're revoking the visas or green cards of hamas supporters in america so they can be deported um and so yeah and and this what i do feel is also happening here from Doge cuts to what I've written about his national emergency decree is so much about if you choose your own reality, and we're going to tell you, like at the border, this is an invasion. And now that it's an invasion, this is unlocking certain things for it to be true. Now they're saying that they want to deport, you know, alleged Hamas supporters and things like that. This is an early example to show we're going to do it. And this is the first one. I think that's why you and me are sort of like, what the hell's going on here? But it's not going to be. Well, it's because it's different, right? It's like,

there is that there's an obvious distinction between saying people are crossing the border illegally or here illegally. And we need to throw them out of the country because they've broken a fundamental law, right? You might not agree with that. You might think that's ill-advised. You might think that that is a waste of resources. You might think it's incredibly socially and economically disruptive. But at least you can say they are not supposed to be here illegally, and we have an obligation to enforce that law. In this case, no one is disputing that he's here legally. He has a green card. The question is,

did he in some tangible way support Hamas? And if so, did he do it to a degree that constitutes a threat to US national security interests or foreign interests? And if so, does the government have a right to deport him? Because obviously that is three gray areas in a row. And now we're in a place where the state's essentially saying so-and-so words or so-and-so actions. We believe we interpret those as a violation or as tangible support for terrorist organization. And you can see just how slippery this slope gets. 100%. Columbia University has declined to comment. I don't think they've.

Why? I don't think. Look, I don't think they've covered themselves in glory this entire time dealing with the Trump administration, dealing with fears about what was going on with the protests, the way they were cracking down on the protests. Now you have this situation happening, which is really interesting. Because if you think back to 9-11, as far as I know, we were not revoking the visas of Muslims during 9-11. Now, there was a registry that they created, which I wrote about recently, sort of comparing this 9-11 registry where they wanted Muslims to sign up to –

Who was in the registry? I'm sorry? Post 9-11. What was the registry post 9-11? It was comprised of who? Yeah. I mean it was comprised of asking Muslims who were here comprised of asking muslims who were here um you know sort of uh i guess there were people who had overstayed their visas who were deported right so

out of 80 000 people that registered 13 000 were deported um but like i said some people had overstayed their visas this guy's here legally with a green card he has an eight-month uh pregnant wife who's a u.s citizen so, again, I think just like this new unprecedented territory that we're reaching into. The people who have defended the administration's actions say Khalil was, again, they allege that he was tangibly trying to, I guess, help Hamas, that the protests on Columbia's campuses were threatening to Jewish students there and that they were prohibiting their ability to pursue their own education, literally blocking them from facilities. This is, I'm just presenting the other side of this and that there was an obligation for

ICE to act because of that. Does ICE have the authority? Yes, we've established that. But ultimately, doesn't this open up any other college campus for this type of action? And suddenly, you now have to wonder, can you protest things on campus is the question. And if you can, to what degree can you protest things on campus is the question. And if you can, to what degree can you bring those protests? I mean, what is the actual line at which you could potentially be risking deportation? Now, this is for green card holders. This is for international students.

No one has arrested a natural born US citizen, but it does raise these questions. Yeah, absolutely does. He has some First Amendment rights. I saw activists today saying that if you can get someone, if you can target someone with a green card, it's not that far from getting a US citizen. And I think that that's one of the things that's going in here, again, with the sort of like making up the rules as they went along. Clearly, they had never done this before. And I mean, in January, Khalil, when asked about the president targeting him, had said that, you know, it's racist to label pro-Palestinian protesters as terrorists, and it undermines their fundamental rights to free speech and assembly. It sets a dangerous precedent. So I think that that's, you know, clearly, as you and I are like figuring out

what's going on here, we're going to be following this week. It's just it hasn't happened before. And I think it sends a chill through so many people where who, you know, in 2017, there was such an opposition to Trump, what was called a resistance. And now you can see in so many areas and so many industries and sectors, people are scared. There's a chill. And they're like, if I oppose Trump, will I be walked out of a federal building? Will I be put on a deportation list? You know?

Right. Okay. And now the pushback here so far is that his lawyer is filing a habeas corpus petition on his behalf related to his detention. And there are protests or protests being organized his release, organized by a group called the People's Forum. It's being planned in New York City's Federal Plaza for Monday afternoon. By the time we put this up, it probably will have been happening. Are you aware of anything else in this space? I mean, I guess it could be both on the free speech side. So you can imagine the ACLU get heavily involved in this and on the immigration side. What I have seen covering immigration so far is that there are certain cases that rise above where the ACLU and the other legal groups are so it's such an assault on their resources.

They're the literal the people that they have available to do these things, I think, by design by the by the Trump administration. So this one is one that I suspect I saw the protests happening later, that there's going to be a lot of strong pushback on this because, like I said, from any issue that you are going to impose the Trump administration, if they can find ways to deport somebody, why can't they go try to deport one of your family members? I mean, they threatened his wife with arrest as well, and she's a U.S. citizen. So we've already gone past all the guardrails that we thought were here, and we're definitely in your territory. I'll just say the other context, and you alluded to this, is Columbia University. So the school has had these student protests and tentaclements during the height of the opposition to the war in Gaza. And they have acknowledged that there's ICE officials now around the campus. But they've also said that they will continue to follow the law.

It's sort of a vague, open statement. Columbia just had – the Trump administration just said it would be pulling $400 million of federal support to Columbia. First of all, I didn't – maybe I'm an idiot, but I had no idea that the federal government sent $400 million to one elite Ivy League academic institution. I am a graduate of the School of Journalism there, but I don't know if they need the $400 million. But whatever, putting that aside, it's a huge chunk of change, and they feel threatened, obviously, by the government because that's hanging over their head.

I mean, I think at the same time, we know that universities for so long have defended free speech, have been these liberal bastions columbia is not only declining the comment they're also saying like ice can come onto their campus and they're saying um if you see them don't get it don't get in the way don't don't don't involve yourself you know it's just so interesting because you could imagine other universities saying like hold on you know check with us. A lot of educational places, obviously, it's different if it's public school or if it's high school. But they've said, we want the government officials to come in, check with us, check with the administrators. We can figure this out.

And so just that they're sort of allowing ICE to be, because he was in an apartment that was a Columbia University-owned apartment. We're just, I mean, I don't know how else to say it. New territory, unprecedented. You know, it's kind of crazy. You've said it three times. Yes, no, it's freaking nuts. Look, you might come down on some other side of the debate on Israel and Palestine. I think that's totally fair game. Putting that aside, though, having government officials come into college campuses and say the speech was over the line, you probably should recognize that there are some real bad implications to that in the directions it can go.

Anyways, Adrian, thanks for unpacking this with us. I know it's a little bit off field for you, but it's helpful to get a good sense of where the immigration rights groups are and the civil liberties groups and how this is affecting people's psyche. We will be following the story. Really appreciate it. Adrian, take care, buddy. Thank you. We interrupt this program to bring you an important Wayfair message. Wayfair has got style tips for every home.

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