Legal experts slammed a recent left-wing narrative that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest of a pro-Hamas activist who led protests on Columbia University’s campus is an attack on the First Amendment, telling Fox News Digital the case is rooted in national security concerns and that immigration laws support the Trump administration’s efforts to deport the agitator.
“The State Department has pulled the first visa of a foreign student who engaged in pro-Hamas disruptions. That’s the right thing to do if we want to fix campus cultures,” Ilya Shapiro, the director of constitutional studies at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, wrote in an essay for the City Journal Friday. “And contrary to disingenuous critics, such a move poses no First Amendment problems.”
“While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States,” he wrote. “There’s nothing objectional or controversial about removing those who harass, intimidate, vandalize, and otherwise interfere with an educational institution’s core mission. More, please.”
Julian Epstein, an attorney and former chief counsel to the Democratic House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital that “the arrests and deportation of pro-Hamas organizers seems not only legal but long overdue.”
“The Immigration and Naturalization Act allows the denial or revocation of any visa holder who espouses or otherwise supports terrorist organizations,” he continued. “Further, 18 USC 245 makes it a criminal offense for any of these protesters to intimidate, harass or impede Jewish students from moving freely about campus and attending classes.”
There is no requirement that a crime be committed under this section of the law. Instead, it provides broad power to the secretary of state to declare an alien deportable.
Brooke Goldstein, a human rights attorney and executive director of the Lawfare Project, which focuses on the civil rights of the Jewish community, told Fox News Digital that Khalil is “warping the First Amendment” in an effort to justify his actions on campus.
“Mahmoud Khalil is facing deportation because of his conduct, including allegedly engaging in building takeovers — criminal activity that endangers public safety — and endorsing and espousing terrorist activity in contravention of the Immigration and Nationality Act,” she said Tuesday. “Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, Khalil is trying to justify them by warping the First Amendment as somehow protecting his illegal conduct. It does not.”
“This is the radical left’s twisted game: hijack the language of civil rights to shield those who openly support terror,” he said. “Cry ‘free speech’ when it’s convenient, stay silent when the mobs descend on Jewish students, and pretend that a man aiding Hamas is just a misunderstood activist. It’s a disgrace.”
“Let’s be crystal clear — a green card is not a birthright,” he said. “It is a privilege. The United States has every right, and indeed a duty, to revoke it from anyone who uses their time here to foment extremism. But instead of backing law and order, politicians like Letitia James, Chuck Schumer, Kathy Hochul, Hakeem Jeffries and their radical allies are tripping over themselves to defend Khalil, all while ignoring the real victims: Jewish students forced to flee their own campus.”