by Jeffrey Isaac Common Dreams
... Last weekend, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) arrested
Khalil Mahmoud, a Columbia University graduate student, living in campus
housing, who has been one of the leaders of the pro-Palestinian
movement on campus. Mahmoud is a Palestinian who was born in Syria, who
has been in the U.S. on a student visa, is currently holding a green
card, and is married to a U.S. citizen. There is no evidence that he has
ever engaged in a violent act. He was apparently arrested in accordance
with the Trump Executive Order, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” signed on January 29, 2025, and also in connection with the recently announced State Department “catch and revoke”
policy, which employs AI tools to locate, detain, and deport
international students considered to be pro-Palestinian and thus, by
definition, “anti-Semitic.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly acknowledged the action, announcing that “we will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” [It must be noted that a U.S. federal judge has just ordered a temporary halt to Mahmoud’s deportation. But it must be noted only parenthetically, because the halt is only temporary, and Mahmoud remains in ICE custody, and if there is any domain where the Trump administration can be relied upon to stick to its metaphorical—and actual—guns, it is this one.]
The arrest of Khalil is a major escalation in a “New Campus McCarthyism” that has beset U.S. higher education for at least the past two years. It follows hard on the Trump administration’s cancellation of over $400 million in Columbia University grants and contracts, and preceded by one day Tuesday’s announcement that the U.S. Department of Education has sent letters to 60 universities “under investigation for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.”...
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