Green card holder arrested; 25 million living in U.S. now subject to deportation
ICE’s arrest of a Columbia University protester on Sunday marks Donald Trump’s opening of a new front in his war on the domestic “enemy” within.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate who is married to a U.S. citizen, is a green card holder, making him a “lawful” permanent resident of the United States. By going after a lawful resident, Trump is expanding his war on the many supposed threats besieging America. The arrest goes well beyond Trump’s usual fixations, illegal immigrants or even foreign student visa holders. He is now just one step away from going after all Americans, trying to create precedent that protest and free speech is itself criminal.
“This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump said today, referring to the arrest.
On social media, Trump labeled Khalil “a radical foreign pro-Hamas student” who has engaged in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
The government is not alleging that Khalil provided “material support” to Hamas or other terrorist group, the usual claim. They instead assert a vague national security justification. In other words, the Trump White House doesn’t like what Khalil said.
Criminalizing Khalil’s views endangers all Americans. Trump’s elastic view of “anti-American” activity is ever expanding. Left unchecked, all protesting students and others, including Americans, could be criminalized too.
There are actually more lawful permanent residents in the U.S. (13.9 million) than people living here without legal status (11.4 million), according to the most recent official data from the Department of Homeland Security. In this sense, the arrest represents a greater threat to foreigners living in the U.S. than any of the administration’s previous actions.
“Your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests,” Trump says of Khalil and any similar protesters, suggesting that they are “paid agitators.”
The Trump administration is framing the arrest as an implementation of the president’s executive order on combating anti-semitism. The order authorizes federal agencies to “monitor for and report activities by alien students” who might be violating the civil rights of Jewish students. Such reports, the order continues, can lead “to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trump-is-coming-after-legal-residents