As the Trump administration nears the six-month mark of its four-year term, there is fear in the air. Recent deportations, all linked to pro-Palestinian activism on university campuses, have served as warnings from the government, an attempt at injecting terror into the American public to discourage them from speaking up against the Israeli government for Palestinian rights.
The deportations started with a Columbia University graduate student named Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained in early March by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) despite his possession of a green card and marriage to a U.S. citizen. Co-founder of the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia, Khalil led protests on Columbia’s campus, advocating against the university’s involvement in Israel amidst the genocide in Palestine. He is being targeted for his pro-Palestinian activism.
His detainment is a dangerously autocratic move, orchestrated by the Trump administration to criminalize lawful protests and infringe on the freedom of speech. To justify Khalil’s deportation, the American government cites the Immigration and Nationality Act, specifically a rarely used provision within the 1952 law granting the authority to revoke an individual’s green card if their presence in the country opposes America’s “foreign policy”. The vague, up-to-interpretation wording provides the government with enough leverage to conduct these unconstitutional arrests, weaponizing immigrant law to infringe on freedom of speech.
Khalil remains in an immigration detention center in Louisiana. Last month, the courts ruled in favor of the Trump administration, approving the grounds for Khalil’s deportation. However, the fight is not over; Khalil’s lawyers are currently pursuing other options that could prevent deportation, keeping him united with his wife and newborn son.
Similarly, Mohsen Mahdawi, the other co-founder who worked alongside Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia, was recently detained by ICE. Mahdawi was told that he was attending an interview to finalize his US citizenship; instead of receiving citizenship, he was trapped by ICE, separated from his lawyers, and put in cuffs.
ICE intended to send Mahdawi to an immigration detention center in Louisiana, a tactic used in Mahmoud Khalil’s and many other similar deportation cases; by sending these individuals across the country, they are unable to communicate with their family, friends, and lawyers, leaving justice inaccessible and thousands of miles away.
However, Mahdawi and the agents narrowly missed the flight, an event that was ultimately crucial to Mahdawi’s freedom; remaining in his home state of Vermont kept him closely connected to his family and lawyers, allowing him to fight for justice fairly in the state he resides in legally.
In an op-ed Mahdawi wrote for The New York Times following his release, he observes, “[The Trump administration] seems willing to shield an extremist Israeli government from criticism at the expense of constitutional rights.” The American government’s actions against pro-Palestinian students dangerously walk the line between democracy and dictatorship, using immigration law as a thinly veiled guise for their infringement on the freedom of speech.
“What is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted next?” Mahdawi asks. An important question, and one that may have an unpromising answer if the Trump administration continues to violate the constitutional right to free speech and deport legal American citizens in an attempt to silence the pro-Palestinian movement.
These deportations are not unique to Columbia University students; higher along the East Coast, a Tufts University student named Rümeysa Öztürk is also being targeted for her pro-Palestinian advocacy, kidnapped by ICE while walking on the street to an iftar dinner. A shocking and disturbing video reveals ICE agents, masked and dressed in plain clothes, placing Öztürk in handcuffs and escorting her into an unlabeled vehicle.
Öztürk, a Turkish international student, is believed to be targeted for an op-ed she wrote earlier last year for The Tufts Daily, criticizing the university’s investments in companies with ties to Israel. Once again, the Trump administration cites the same Act and provision to justify her detention—and once again, her arrest raises concerns regarding freedom of speech—and its limits in America for the Palestinian people and their allies.
In fact, the unconstitutionality of her arrest prompted 27 American Jewish organizations to prepare and file a brief in her case, supporting Öztürk’s freedom of expression and criticizing the unethical nature and reasoning behind her arrest. The brief highlights how the government’s actions jeopardize democracy and freedom of speech altogether. While the organizations may not agree with the contents of Öztürk’s article, they all stand firm with her, urging the courts to free her from her unjust detainment. They also criticize the citation of the 1952 law, arguing that “[American] foreign policy is not so fragile that an op-ed in a student newspaper could so easily compromise it”.
The organizations also express their indignation that the term “anti-semitism” is being used as a justification for these recent deportations, stating that “[t]he government… appears to be exploiting Jewish Americans’ legitimate concerns about antisemitism as pretext for undermining core pillars of American democracy, the rule of law, and the fundamental rights of free speech”.
Fortunately, Öztürk’s case has a positive resolution; this past week, a judge ordered her release. She has been freed from detention since and speaks of the unjust treatment she was subjected to, including being unable to access food after fasting all day and not receiving medical care for her severe asthma. Despite this, she maintains that she has faith in the American justice system, pursuing her case in hopes of holding the government accountable for the unlawful conditions of her arrest.
The Trump administration dangles access to higher education, economic stability, and the American Dream over the heads of hard-working international students—before snatching it away at the first exercise of the very freedoms promised to them. Activists like Khalil, Mahdawi, and Öztürk are providing voices to the tens of thousands of suffering and deceased Palestinians; by punishing their freedom of speech, the Trump administration displays their willingness to infringe on the rights and freedoms of global citizens. And if they violate these rights with no hesitation, where and when will they stop?
American or not, the pro-Palestinian movement must continue to fight; remaining silent out of fear is the equivalent of submitting to the oppressor. Mohsen Mahdawi and Rümeysa Öztürk persevered through months of unjust detention; many, like Mahmoud Khalil, are still imprisoned today. The Palestinian people are being robbed of their own voices; as members of Western society, equipped with the very tools necessary to aid in their liberation, it is our responsibility to leverage every platform we are given to condemn this genocide.