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The detention last weekend of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student, by Department of Homeland Security agents, in compliance with an executive order signed by President Trump in January calling for the removal of foreign students who participated in protests, alarms me on many different levels.
Khalil’s “crime” appears to be that he played a prominent role in last year’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, the scene of some of the fiercest protests against the war in Gaza. Khalil spoke to the national media about the students’ efforts and acted as a mediator between university officials and the activists and students who attended the protests.
A DHS document said Khalil, a Syrian national by birth, was deportable from the US under the Immigration and National Security Act, which allows the secretary of state to remove a person when they have reasonable grounds to believe that a person’s presence “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the US.”
For me personally, the particularly chilling aspect of Khalil’s case is that he is a permanent resident of the US, legally entitled to be in the US. He is also married to a US woman, who is eight months pregnant with their first child, adding to the stress of their situation. I was once a permanent resident card holder myself (I am now an American citizen), and I remember well that nagging sense of insecurity every time I travelled in and out of the country – about whether some border official would find a reason to detain or expel me.
The handful of times when I was pulled aside for further questioning upon arrival back in the US, I always felt lucky to be a relatively privileged, white, native English speaker, with good connections in the US, who could help me out if something did go wrong.
Most people detained alongside me spoke very little English, if at all, seemed to be of Hispanic, African or Asian descent, and looked absolutely terrified of the beefy, intimidating, guards who stood watching us, armed to the hilt. I thought it likely that they would face a far harder process than me.
The idea that the US government can arbitrarily detain and deport people who are legally resident in the US is absolutely terrifying for the millions of legally permanent residents in the US, who don’t yet possess citizenship. I believe Khalil’s Muslim, Arab background, made him especially ripe for targeting, given this administration’s particular hostility to such people. But his case has caused me to wonder – could the authorities even decide to revoke the citizenship of non-native-born Americans, such as myself, if they decide we too have become undesirable in some way? I no longer think this a far-fetched notion.
Friends in think tanks tell me they have been put under a “gag order” – told not to write about “democracy”, to be careful what they say about Ukraine, and not to repost anything negative about the administration, even if expressed by Republicans.
The second aspect of the case that bothers me is that, as of writing, Khalil has not been charged with a crime, is not alleged to have engaged in any activity legally prohibited to U.S. residents, and authorities have not provided any material proof to back up their informal assertions that he had been leading “activities aligned with Hamas”.
It is certainly true that some of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities across America last year became violent. Many were deeply disruptive of normal campus life and were intimidating for Jewish students. It is also true that some protestors carried placards, chanted slogans, or wrote graffiti appearing to glorify the hideous atrocities of Hamas on 7 October.
However, no evidence has yet been produced to connect Khalil directly to these most extreme forms of protest, which many would contend did cross an acceptable line of behaviour.
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This did not stop US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, from defending Khalil’s detention, by doubling down on the implication that he was a pro-Hamas activist, who had moreover applied to study in the US with an explicit intention to promote anti-semitic activities.
Rubio said “When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is – which is how this individual entered this country, on a visitor’s visa – as a visitor, we can deny you that visa. When you tell us when you apply, ‘Hi, I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa. I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages,’ if you tell us that you are in favour of a group like this and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, ‘and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, antisemitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities,’ if you told us all these things when you applied for your visa, we would deny your visa. I’d hope we would.”
Rubio also said Khalil’s case “is not about free speech. This is about people who do not have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card by the way.”
Overlooking the fact that Khalil applied to study in the US long before the war in Gaza even started, Rubio is guilty of conflating all pro-Palestinian protests with anti-semitic, pro-Hamas behaviour. This raises the prospect that anybody who expresses any kind of concern for Palestinians, criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, or US support for Israel, runs the risk of being detained, whether directly involved in violent activities or not.
But it also sends a chilling message to anyone inclined to protest any Administration’s policies, because, contrary to Rubio’s assertion, of course Khalil’s detention is about free speech – and this is the most troubling aspect of all.
Inverting the Meaning of ‘Free Speech’
Trump and his supporters like to claim he is committed to restoring “free speech” in America and ending the alleged “censorship” of US citizens under President Biden.
To that end, one of Trump’s first Executive Orders, which he signed on day one of his new Presidency, ordered that “no federal officer, employee or agent may unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen”. Yet, many of this administration’s actual actions seem aimed at precisely the opposite effect – namely, intimidating opponents into silence.
Trump has a well-known track record from his first administration of suing and bullying journalists, critics and political opponents. Amongst the most egregious actions in his second term, his administration has:
- Threatened to cut off funding for universities which allow “illegal protests” – without specifying how these might be defined
- Punished law firms who have worked with Trump’s political opponents, such as Hillary Clinton, or engaged in activities which the President perceives as hostile, such as working on legal investigations against him – by blocking their access to federal buildings and ending their involvement in government contracts
- Banned the Associated Press from the White House press room, for refusing to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the new name Trump wishes it to be known by – the Gulf of America, and arrogated to itself the right to decide who gets to attend White House press conferences, overturning decades of precedent designed to ensure fair, apolitical, coverage of Presidential events.
- Attacked by name on social media federal civil servants who have resisted unlawful orders to fire staff, or allow access to their buildings or systems for Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees
- Lambasted as public enemies judges who have issued rulings against the administration. Absurdly, this has even included attacks on Trump’s own Supreme Court appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, who sided with the majority in a narrow Supreme Court ruling ordering the administration to pay USAID contractors for work already carried out. On X, Musk attacked her for allegedly being a “DEI” hire. Others have posted pictures of her family on social media with subliminally racist messaging about two of her children, who are black adoptees.
At the same time as decrying pro-Palestinian activists for allegedly violent or anti-semitic activities, Trump in his first term sought to defend white supremacist activists promoting explicitly anti-Jewish messages during a protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, and at the start of his second term, pardoned all the participants in the January 6 insurrection, who were found guilty of explicitly violent attacks, including on law enforcement officials. These are not the actions of someone genuinely concerned about civil behaviour, law and order.
In another example of his inconsistent approach to free speech, in his first term, Trump regularly attacked companies that he deemed were insufficiently supportive of his agenda.
He called for consumers to boycott Harley Davidson, for planning to move some operations overseas; he attacked Apple for withholding information from authorities about people Trump described as “radical Islamists”; and called for a boycott on Macy’s to continue, saying on X “Macy stores suck.” Yet this week, he has decried an effort by activists on social media to urge a consumer boycott of Tesla, in opposition to the activities of DOGE, led by Tesla boss, Elon Musk, and described protests outside Tesla showrooms as “illegal and collusive.”
A classic example of Trump’s personal abuse of free speech came on Friday, when Trump launched a tirade against his perceived political enemies in a speech at the Department of Justice, normally regarded as hallowed apolitical turf. In an hour-long rambling speech, Trump accused mainstream media outlets such as CNN, the main news networks, and even the right-leaning Wall Street Journal of illegal and corrupt behaviour, described his courtroom opponents as “scum”, judges “corrupt” and the prosecutors investigating him as “deranged, and called for those who opposed him to be sent to prison.
In a bitter blow for champions of free speech internationally, on Sunday, Trump also signed an executive order effectively closing down the Voice of America, a radio service launched in 1942 to counter Nazi and Japanese propaganda.
It played a vital role during the Cold War in transmitting news to listeners behind the Iron Curtain and is still used as a reliable news source by hundreds of millions of people today around the world, not least to counter misinformation pushed out by authoritarian regimes such as China, Russia and Iran. The US National Press Club put out a statement saying the order “undermines America’s longstanding commitment to a free and independent press.
Trump’s order also affects other highly regarded US-funded international media outlets such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
The double standards are egregious. Trump’s definition of “free speech” is that anything done in support of the President is acceptable, whether legal or not, but anyone engaged in activities critical of the President is an undesirable, who risks not just social media bullying, and harassment, but may even face formal government retribution, including even arrest, criminal charges and deportation.
Unfortunately, so far, these tactics seem to be working. Contacts in the Republican party tell me their members are genuinely afraid of being attacked by MAGA supporters or facing primary challenges if they criticise the President.
Major media outlets, such as the Washington Post, are toning down their criticism of the administration. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that business leaders are deliberately choosing not to express their opposition to Trump’s tariff policies out loud, for fear of incurring Trump’s wrath and damaging their business.
Friends in think tanks tell me they have been put under a “gag order” – told not to write about “democracy”, to be careful what they say about Ukraine, and not to repost anything negative about the administration, even if expressed by Republicans. They have also been told to scrub their personal media accounts.
A few weeks ago, Vice President JD Vance was lecturing Europeans at the Munich Security Conference for their alleged failure to uphold freedom of speech. But, the most sinister instances of Western government censorship and repression are happening here, in America, right now.