The NPR Politics Podcast - Who Is Mahmoud Khalil, The Protester The Trump Admin Wants To Deport?

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

While studying at Columbia University, Khalil helped lead pro-Palestinian protests on campus relating to Israel's war with Gaza. He was taken into ICE custody Saturday, and the Trump administration has said it wants to deport Khalil as part of a wider crackdown on what it calls anti-Semitic protests on college campuses — even though Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of the United States. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, immigration policy reporter Ximena Bustillo, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Kayla in Tampa, Florida. I just celebrated turning 18 today by registering to vote. This podcast was recorded at 1 0 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 11. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will finally be participating in our country's democracy. Okay, here's the show. Happy birthday to you. What a lovely timestamp to start this day. Hey there, it's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Jimena Bustillo and I cover immigration policy. And I'm Mara Laiassen, senior national political correspondent.

And today on the show, the case of Mahmoud Khalil. He's a Columbia University graduate facing possible deportation for the role he's played in campus protests in support of Palestine. His arrest is challenging the bounds of both immigration law and First Amendment protections. And we're going to talk about both today. But first, Hemenna, can you start by telling us more about who Khalil is? Hemenna De-Hellman, Ph.D., Ph.D., Ph.D. He was born in Syria and is of Palestinian descent. His lawyer has said that he grew up in Syria because his grandparents were removed from their home in Tiberias, which is now part of Israel, but used to be Palestine. He recently graduated from Columbia in December,

but before that, he became the face of the pro-Palestinian movement during the wave of campus protests last year. He's been described as one of the negotiators between students and university administrators and a spokesperson for the students. Lauren Henry And then on March 8th, he's arrested by ICE agents at home in his New York apartment. What was the cause for his arrest? Courtney Holmes So President Trump in January directed the government in one of his executive actions to use all of its tools to punish those that have engaged in, quote, anti-Semitic harassment and violence. This executive action

cites a federal law that authorizes deporting foreign nationals who also, quote, endorse or espouse terrorist activity. So the Department of Homeland Security and other members of the administration have said that Khalil has been arrested in support of this action and that Khalil had, quote, led activities aligned to Hamas, which is a designated terrorist organization. Now, he hasn't been charged yet with a crime that I've been tracking, but is being held in a detention facility in Louisiana, one that's ran by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency.

We should note that Khalil is a lawful permanent resident, also known as having a green card, and his wife is an American citizen. So there's broad thought that Trump's targets on this action would have been those on temporary student visas or undocumented students, which he is not. And my understanding is the law would actually be much more on the Trump administration side if he was just here on a student visa. The administration absolutely has the power to revoke visas. Right. It could have been a lot easier to just say that your visa is being revoked or

rescinded for various reasons, but the green card and having a legal permanent residence status does add complications, particularly for the Trump administration, where now it's likely that an immigration judge will be the one to make that decision. does add complications, particularly for the Trump administration, where now it's likely that an immigration judge will be the one to make that decision. Mara, President Trump has championed Khalil's arrest. He said it's the first quote of many to come. Certainly suggests this administration is going to be eager to have exactly this kind of high-profile immigration fight.

Yes. And I think as in so many of the Trump administration's efforts since he was inaugurated This is about pushing the edge of the envelope because they chose a legal resident to go after first Not just somebody on a student visa. So I think that this Expulsion or attempted expulsion is really about the First Amendment as much as it's about immigration It's true, but I was as I was thinking about this like yes, it's about immigration. It's true, Mara, but as I was thinking about this, like, yes, it's about immigration, it's about the First Amendment. But this particular case to me also seems to be in response to that wave of campus protests last year around the Israel-Hamas war. I mean, during the campaign,

Trump pledged to quash all these protest debates, to throw people out of the country. And in that regard, he does seem to have some element of public support here. Oh, yeah. We should have added one more thing. It's about immigration, the First Amendment, and it's about colleges. And especially elite colleges like Columbia have become part of Trump's enemies list. He recently moved to get rid of $400 million of federal funding that goes to Columbia because of these protests, which he has called anti-Semitic. And the campus protests were unpopular, not unlike some of the other targets

that Trump has chosen first, like foreign aid, like people here without documentation, like anything that benefits trans people, faceless federal bureaucrats. I mean, these are politically popular targets. All right, we're gonna take a quick break and we're gonna talk more about this when we get back. This message comes from Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies. Sending or spending money abroad,

hidden fees may be taking a cut. With Wise, you can convert between up to 40 currencies at the mid-market exchange rate. Visit WISE.com. T&Cs apply. And we're back. And Khalil's arrest also has the potential to become a fascinating pressure test on First Amendment protections.

Some baseline facts here. Khalil is a legal resident of the U.S., which means he's entitled to all the constitutional protections, including due process, as everyone else. And Mara, I mean, we're journalists. We know this. The First Amendment exists in large part to protect unpopular ideas. The Trump administration has accused Khalil of being pro-Hamas. His lawyer would obviously take contention with that.

But it seems like, you know, it's a pretty clear-cut case of maybe trying to police unpopular political speech. Yeah, and Trump is pushing against all sorts of constitutional protections in the hope and expectation that at least on a lot of them, the Supreme Court will be on his side. The paradox here is that Trump and the MAGA right really positioned themselves as free speech absolutists. And this arrest directly contradicts that argument. They've been talking for years about how conservative speech is censored on the internet, on college campuses, that the more speech the better, even if it involves promoting

conspiracy theories that aren't true. And all of a sudden, they've now decided that when it's speech they don't like, they want to try to curtail those constitutional protections. These are also moments to me that sometimes bend the reality curve in politics, because I was struck yesterday by Ann Coulter, who's a conservative media pundit. But one of the things she's known for is being very anti-immigration. And even she put a statement on X that said, there's almost no one I don't want to deport, but unless they've committed a crime, isn't this a violation of the First Amendment? I mean, even people who traditional conservatives, and I would note that traditional conservatives

are often some of the most strongest First Amendment supporters, are maybe not aligning with the Trump administration on this. Well that depends on how you look at the rule of law. If you think the rule of law should be replaced by the law of the ruler and that one guy should decide what is protected speech and what isn't, then yeah, it's possible that the courts will rule that Trump can do this, that it's possible to go after arrests like these. And then as Trump promised, you'll see many more. But if you believe that the constitutional protections are correct and they just haven't

been applied across the board and they've been prejudiced against conservatives, then that's something different. But yes, there are splits inside the MAGA movement. But for now, Trump gets to define what that movement stands for. Amina, this is a case happening in real time, but what's happening next? What are you watching for? Well, a federal judge in New York City ordered on Monday that Khalil not be deported while the court is considering the legal challenge to his arrest brought by his lawyers.

We're awaiting for additional legal documents to drop today, and that might determine whether or not a hearing scheduled for tomorrow continues to move forward. It is also possible that he has to go through the immigration court process as well. You know, revoking a green card is something that does happen for violating terms of being a lawful permanent residence, committing crimes like aggravated felonies, committing fraud, et cetera. But ultimately, that is its own legal fight separately in immigration court, which is its own separate world of all the other courts that we're kind of talking about right now.

I think I want to ask both of you, how big of an impact do you see this case potentially having about something bigger that's happening under the Trump administration, either in terms of how far this president's going to be willing to go to win on these immigration fights or how far he's willing to go to sort of do battle with his political opponents? Oh, I think this is a very important case for a number of reasons. One, it's going to test the boundaries of what the court will let him do in terms of applying the First Amendment selectively to his supporters, not to his opponents. But also, whether it has a chilling effect. We already know that people

are self-censoring, whether it's newspaper owners or corporations pulling back on things they think Donald Trump doesn't like. And then we'll see if campus protests self-censor and if there's a chilling effect on dissent on college campuses, which I think is one of the stated goals of the Trump administration. All because they're worried and scared really of what the Trump administration might do if they decide to come after them.

And I think this is gonna be another case. Maybe students from different countries will not wanna come here. I think it has a lot of ramifications. On the immigration front, this really does build on Trump's first term efforts to strip away naturalization or legal status from those who already had it and is already him taking additional steps to help remove status from people who are already in the country to be here lawfully. This increases the number of people who are eligible for deportations, but the caveat that I'll put here is that increasing the number of people who might be eligible for

deportation does not mean more deportations. The administration is openly struggling to keep up with the quotas on arrests, the space, the manpower to house those who are arrested, and they're running out of money. So much more to say about this, but thank you to you both. That is it for us today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Jimena Bustillo, and I cover immigration policy. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And thanks for listening

to the NPR Politics Podcast. Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all, on the web at theschmidt.org.