The Trump administration’s push to deport Palestine activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil is based on an accusation of “antisemitism,” according to a source who saw the government’s filing.

Facing a court deadline to hand over evidence justifying Khalil’s, the Department of Homeland Security submitted a two-page memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio citing the Trump administration’s authority to expel noncitizens that have the potential to damage the foreign policy interests of the United States.

A day after the memo was submitted, Louisiana Judge Jamee Comans said she had no authority to question Rubio’s decision.

“I would like to quote what you said last time that there’s nothing that’s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness,” Khalil told the judge. “Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process.”

“This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family,” he continued. “I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months.”

Rubio’s memo

Rubio’s memo, which was obtained by the Associated Press, concedes that Khalil’s time in the United States has been “otherwise lawful,” but that allowing him to stay in the country would hinder the U.S. government’s “policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”

“Condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio added.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson initially accused Khalil of being connected to Hamas, but the administration has never provided any proof of this accusation. The political organization is not mentioned at all in the memo.

Court documents filed at the beginning of the trial suggest that the Trump administration might rely on a provision from the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which was used to target Holocaust survivors suspected of being Soviet agents.

“An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable,” reads that provision.

Rubio also calls for the deportation of another permanent resident in the filing, but their name is redacted.

“This document shows that the Secretary of State’s determination that Mr. Khalil is deportable is based solely on his free speech activities as he has alleged in his habeas litigation,” said the Center for Constitutional Rights’s Samah Sissay, who is one of Khalil’s attorneys. “The government has not stated any legitimate foreign policy interest that is negatively impacted by Mr. Khalil but instead erroneously attributes prejudiced views to him for participating in the student encampment at Columbia University and speaking out against the United State’s support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The government has not met its burden and Mr. Khalil should be released.”

“The only argument that they have for deporting Mahmoud Khalil is that he engaged in ‘thoughtcrime’,” tweeted journalist Hannah Gais.

Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE agents outside his home in New York on March 8, after the State Department revoked his student visa and green card. He has spent the past month in an immigration detention center in Louisiana.

A federal judge blocked Trump’s deportation order and the case has been proceeding in a New Jersey court.

Khalil’s arrest kicked off a wave of repression against students, many of them connected to the Gaza solidarity protests of last spring. Some self-deported to avoid arrest, while others face court proceedings. Last month Rubio estimated that he revoked at least 300 visas.

Additionally, the Trump administration has blocked billions of dollars in government funding to schools as part of its alleged campaign to combat antisemitism. The government has implied that universities can regain the congressionally approved funding by cracking down on Palestine activism across their campuses. Some schools, like Columbia and Harvard, have already begun to comply with Trump’s recommendations.

Last week, Khalil dictated an op-ed that was published in the Columbia Spectator.

“The student movement will continue to carry the mantle of a free Palestine,” he wrote. “History will redeem us, while those who were content to wait on the sidelines will be forever remembered for their silence.”

Judge Comans has given Khalil’s attorneys until April 23 to request a stay of his deportation. If they don’t meet that deadline, she will order him to be deported to his birthplace of Syria, or Algeria, where he is a citizen.

Source: Mondoweiss

April 5 — Tens of thousands came to the U.S. empire’s capital in the Black colony of Washington, D.C., today to stop the genocide in Gaza. They marched on the headquarters of ICE to demand an end to the kidnapping of political activists and immigrant workers.

People gathered on Constitution Avenue with the U.S. Capitol in the distance. A huge banner reading “Let Gaza Live!” was a backdrop on the stage.

The banner also carried the names of Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Badar Khan Suri — two students and a professor who were seized by ICE for simply speaking out against genocide.

This important action was initiated by the Palestinian Youth Movement; American Muslims for Palestine; U.S. Palestinian Community Network; Palestine Feminist Collective; U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Jewish Voices for Peace; and the ANSWER Coalition. Hundreds of organizations endorsed it. Organizers estimated that at least 30,000 participated in the demonstration.

Eugene Puryear of Breakthrough News chaired the event. He paid tribute to the hundreds of journalists whom the Zionist apartheid state has assassinated.

Among the speakers were Iman Abid of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights; Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations; Imam Omar Suleiman; Taher Dahleh of the Palestinian Youth Movement; Gabby Ballard of the Party for Socialism and Liberation; and Layan Fuleihan of The People’s Forum.

Also speaking was Grant Miner, president of UAW Local 2710, Student Workers of Columbia University. (Most of the actual teaching in universities is done by “adjuncts,” low-paid graduate students.) Miner was expelled and fired by Colombia for his solidarity with Palestine.

There was a labor contingent that included members of UE (United Electrical workers) and SEIU. Union activists carried a banner reading “Free Mahmoud, Rumeysa and Badar! Stop the repression! Free speech is a union issue!”

Activists from the People’s Power Assembly and Struggle-La Lucha came from Baltimore.

People marched to the headquarters of ICE. A long scroll, 200 feet long, with the names of over 40,000 people murdered by the U.S. and “Israel” was carried by demonstrators.

Thousands of colorful signs and banners were carried.

Three tall, narrow banners were carried that said: “Israel bombs / USA pays / Maersk delivers genocide.” This referred to the criminal role of the Danish shipping giant that carries U.S.-made bombs and shells to the Zionist military.

Doctors Against Genocide carried an extended red banner reading “End Genocide.”

A woman carried a sign saying “Thank you South Africa for your voice!” Trump is punishing South Africa for daring to bring genocide charges against Netanyahu.

At the ICE headquarters, people turned around and marched toward the White House before dispersing. The struggle to stop the genocide in Palestine will continue.

Sick from Genocide? A Pop Up Clinic prescribed by Doctors Against Genocide and Health Care Workers for Palestine to help “end this genocide and alleviate the stress the horrors of genocide have put on our community,” exercised its right April 4 to speak out about the harm in Gaza and Palestine and its repression reverberating across the streets and campuses of the U.S. 

According to an article in The Metro Times the initial bi-weekly gathering on a sidewalk at Wayne State University, which began on Jan. 17 near the Medical School, was suppressed by the Wayne State University officials.  

Although several weeks ago, WSU administration officially recognized that university guidelines permitted such gatherings, they called police to rout and potentially arrest participants on March 21. It took a signed contract binding the university to respect the right of faculty, students and community to call out the ongoing genocide in Gaza for the event to take place on April 4 without incident.  

Five thousand people marched in New York City on March 30 to protest the U.S./Zionist genocide against the Palestinian people. Along with protesters all over the world, they were commemorating Palestine Land Day.

In 1976, the Zionist apartheid regime announced plans to steal nearly eight square miles of Palestinian land in the Galilee region. A general strike was declared on March 30, 1976, to stop this land theft.

Tens of thousands protested all over occupied Palestine. At least six Palestinians were killed, many more were injured, and hundreds were arrested. Since that time 49 years ago, Palestinians and their supporters have marked Land Day by protesting the Zionist occupation of their homeland.

In New York City this year, the Shut It Down 4 Palestine Coalition called for people to gather in Manhattan’s Union Square. Among the organizations building the action were the Palestinian Youth Movement; PAL-AWDA, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Neturei Karta (anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews); the Party for Socialism and Liberation; and The People’s Forum.

Among the speakers were Taher Dahleh from the Palestinian Youth Movement; Layan Fuleihan from The People’s Forum; Claudia De La Cruz, the PSL presidential candidate last year; and Bill Dores representing PAL-AWDA.

Dores said, “It is to keep the wealth of the world pouring into the coffers of the 1% here” that the U.S. finances and supplies the Zionist war machine. “They are looting our communities here to pay for their bombs, while Elon Musk is shutting down hospitals,” he said.

Dores pointed out that while the U.S. bombed a cancer hospital in Yemen, Netanyahu bombed the last remaining cancer hospital in Gaza.

People marched out of Union Square and into the street, going uptown. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!,” and other chants echoed against skyscrapers.

Supporters of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development carried a banner saying, “Korea for Palestine.” An even longer banner read “Staten Island 4 Palestine.”

People showed their support along the side of the march. Drivers honked their horns in support.

The march ended with a brief rally in Times Square. People were reminded of the massive march planned for Washington, D.C., on April 5.

Land back from South Dakota’s Black Hills to Palestine!

On March 29, Los Angeles saw a significant gathering to commemorate Palestinian Land Day, as protesters rallied against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and escalating violence by U.S.-armed Zionist forces. 

The march and demonstration channeled the growing global outrage over the U.S.-backed Zionist entity’s systemic efforts to erase Palestinian sovereignty and identity. 

Amid chants and banners, participants underscored the urgency of international solidarity.

Initiated by the Palestinian Youth Movement, and endorsed by Unmute Humanity, Unión del Barrio, ANSWER Coalition, Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, and other organizations, the demonstration saw more than a thousand Palestinians and supporters begin at LAPD headquarters and then take over two lanes of traffic winding through busy downtown streets to hold a closing rally in Pershing Square.

In their coverage of this important demonstration, corporate media marched in lockstep with the Trump administration’s campaign to stamp out the U.S. Palestine solidarity movement. Fox-affiliated radio and TV stations in Los Angeles gave a crowd estimate of “dozens,” while the Los Angeles Times did not report on the event.

From the back of the flatbed truck that led the march, Fatin of Unmute Humanity thanked PYM for “always being organized.” She said that no one should think that protests don’t matter, because “we are in constant contact with our people in Palestine and this means so much to them.” 

Fatin went on to list some examples of the circumstances around the deaths of many martyrs, with the crowd shouting “Shame!” after each case. She concluded, “This is the moment — we speak, we write, we fight … Refusing extermination is resistance! We are living proof that resistance is life. Long live our martyrs! Long live our people! Free Palestine!”

March 18 — Thousands marched through the streets of midtown Manhattan tonight to protest the genocidal bombing of Gaza. An estimated 400 Palestinians, including 175 children, were killed by the Zionist apartheid state using.U.S.-made bombs and planes.

The action was called on short notice by the Shut It Down 4 Palestine Coalition. People rallied in Times Square, carrying Palestinian flags and hundreds of signs and chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

A short message was read from Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student who was kidnapped by ICE Gestapo agents and taken to Louisiana. He was singled out because he helped organize protests in defense of Palestine.

On March 15, at least a thousand people marched in Manhattan to free Mahmoud Khalil.

Columbia University refused to defend Khalil, a Palestinian, and his family, who were subjected to death threats. Instead, the Ivy League school has expelled, suspended, or fired students who protested. Some had their diplomas retracted.

One of those fired, Grant Miner, spoke at Times Square. He’s the president of United Auto Workers Local 2710, representing Columbia University’s student workers. 

Other speakers included representatives from the Palestinian Youth Movement; PAL-AWDA, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Neturei Karta, an anti-Zionist group of Orthodox Jews; the Party for Socialism and Liberation; and The People’s Forum.

Free Palestine!

The illusion has been quickly and violently shattered that the Western-backed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrow of the Syrian Arab Republic represented a genuine move towards democracy and sovereignty for the Syrian people. 

For decades under the rule of the Al-Baath party, Syria enjoyed a secular culture where religious and ethnic minorities were explicitly protected in the constitution and policy. With the collapse of the Assad government and the Syrian Arab Republic more broadly, those secular protections have all but disappeared under HTS rule. 

In fact, HTS has gone far beyond the end of legal protections. HTS and affiliated right-wing Islamist militias have launched a series of massacres against various religious and ethnic minorities in Syria. These vicious attacks have targeted Kurdish, Alawite, Druze, and Christian minority communities in Syria. While the terror campaign began in the towns and villages along the northwest coast, a region with a significant Alawite population, the violence has since spread across the country. HTS terrorists have targeted the Alawite community in particular not only due to their adherence to Shia Islam but also because Bashar Al-Assad, his family, and many of his supporters are Alawites themselves. The Christian community living in the same region has faced violence and repression as well. 

HTS fighters have also murdered dozens of Druze people in southern Syria, Kurdish people in northern Syria, and have even escalated against Lebanese people living along Syria’s border. The campaign against ethnic minorities in Syria has actually led to direct conflict between HTS and Lebanon’s armed forces. Consequently, over 13,000 people have already fled from Syria to Lebanon. 

All the while, HTS has refused to lift a finger to stop Israel from its advances in southern Syria and its continued destruction of all military infrastructure left over from the Assad government. On the contrary, the so-called new democratic government of Syria under HTS has only expressed a desire to be friendly with the Zionist entity. Further, the HTS sham government has already banned public displays of “pro-Iranian” propaganda. All of these policies are clear indicators that HTS’s Syria is a complete pawn of the West, meant to keep Syria divided and subservient to imperialism. 

And even with all of these massacres against Syrian minority communities, Zionist-backed Druze leadership and U.S.-backed Kurdish leadership have still signed agreements to integrate their communities into the racist HTS government. While the Druze and Kurdish people should be free from persecution, this does not change the nature of deals where militia leaders sell out their communities in exchange for some limited political power inside a Western puppet government.

The terror campaign against Syrian minority communities has triggered organized armed resistance from commanders and troops formerly affiliated with the Syrian Arab Republic. These forces broadly reject U.S. intervention in their country and receive organizational support from allies in Iran and Lebanon. 

While progressive resistance to these massacres is a welcome sight, the situation is still regrettable. The imperialist playbook has unfortunately worked in Syria to devastating effect. Just like Libya before it, U.S. military investment in right-wing Islamist militias has spiraled the entirety of Syria into ethnic division, racist violence, and social chaos. All this in a country that was previously relatively stable, even under constant siege via Western sanctions and military intervention. 

The tragedy unfolding in Syria highlights more than ever the need for genuine solidarity with progressive nationalist governments who refuse to bend the knee to imperialism. 

Lev Koufax is an anti-Zionist Jewish activist.

Defend the Right to Organize, Protest

Resist Trump’s Gestapo Tactics

Shut Down Immigrant Prisons, Abolish ICE

Palestinian activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was abducted by ICE agents on March 8 and was transferred to the LaSalle detention center (a for-profit ICE prison) in Jena, Louisiana. Yesterday, after major protests, a federal judge temporarily halted his deportation. 

This act of political repression is a major escalation by Trump. Already, thousands of our immigrant siblings suffer unjust detention, often in retaliation for organizing for better conditions in their workplaces and communities. During Trump’s first term, ICE agents carried out a mass raid of 680 workers at a poultry processing plant in Mississippi. Many were organizing with the Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and had just won a $3.75 million settlement against Koch Foods for wage theft, discrimination, and sexual harassment.

The persecution of Khalil is a replay of the Palmer Raids which targeted immigrants as a means of crushing the growing movement within the U.S. for workers’ rights, women’s liberation, and more. Just as the Palmer Raids were carried out to retaliate against a heroic strike of miners — organized jointly by citizen and immigrant workers — the detention of Khalil is meant to crush the progressive student movement which exploded in protest of the U.S.-funded genocide in Palestine. 

Trump is threatening to withhold disaster relief for state and city governments that do not bend to his fascist dictates. He is threatening to defund schools that teach history. The mass firings carried out by Musk and Trump are also part of their campaign of terror. They want to crush the movement for gender equality, environmental justice, Black liberation — anything that stands in the way of their efforts to squeeze as much profit from us as they can.

Our power to resist Trump’s fascist moves derives from our unity, our ability to act as one.

Stand up for our immigrant siblings and demand full legal and labor rights for them all. Close the camps.

Stand with our Palestinian siblings as they struggle to liberate their homeland from the grips of U.S.-funded fascism. Their struggle is ours.

#NotOneMore #AbolishICE #FreeMahmoudKhalil

Workers Voice Socialist Movement is based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The arrest of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil took place in the wake of increased threats by the Trump administration to student activists

Agents with the US Department of Homeland Security arrested Palestinian activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil on Saturday, March 8, at his residence in New York City. Khalil was active in the Palestine solidarity movement at Columbia University and was one of the lead negotiators with the university administration during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in Spring 2024.

Khalil is currently being detained in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center where he could be processed for deportation. At the time of writing, neither his legal team nor his family knows of his whereabouts. The day after his detention, his wife, who is eight months pregnant, went to visit him at an ICE detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he was reportedly being held, and she was informed that he was not there. His attorney Amy Greer said in a statement to media that they have not been given any concrete information about his whereabouts but had heard a rumor that he could be transferred to Louisiana.

His detention has been widely condemned due to the multiple violations committed by the DHS agents during his detention as well as the unprecedented nature of his arrest.

Notably, Khalil has a green card and is thus a lawful permanent resident of the United States. During his arrest, the agents told Khalil that his student visa had been revoked and he responded to them saying that he was in fact a green card holder and a permanent resident. When his wife showed them his green card, the agents responded by informing that the State Department had also revoked his green card.

This was confirmed in a post from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who posted a link to an AP article about Khalil’s arrest with the comment: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

A press release informing on Khalil’s detention also detailed that the DHS agents forced their way into the apartment building where Khalil lives with his wife and did not identify themselves. They also threatened his wife, who is a US citizen, with arrest.

In the short phone exchange that the officers had with Khalil’s attorney, they rejected her request for a copy of the warrant for his arrest and hung up on her.

His attorney Amy Greer said in a statement to media: “ICE’s arrest and detention of Mahmoud follows the US government’s open repression of student activism and political speech, specifically targeting students at Columbia University for criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza…The US government has made clear that they will use immigration enforcement as a tool to suppress that speech.”

Trump’s crackdown on student protesters

Khalil’s unprecedented arrest comes amid threats made by members of the Trump administration to crack down on the historic Palestine solidarity movement at college campuses across the US. The president himself had written on March 4, “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled…”

On January 29, Trump signed an executive order on “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism” which directed officials, including from the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, to guide higher education institutions to “report activities by alien students and staff” that Trump’s administration could consider as anti-semitic or supportive of terrorism. Such reports could “lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”

From this executive order, the “Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” was launched on February 3, which is composed of representatives from the Department of Justice, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, along with others, and is coordinated through the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

On February 28, this Task Force announced it would visit 10 universities that had “experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023” including: Columbia University, George Washington University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California. Notably, the US government announced on Friday, March 7, that it was pulling USD 400 million in grants to Columbia University for inaction on antisemitism.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump said in the White House statement about the Executive Order released on January 30, “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

Axios published a report on March 6 stating that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was launching an “AI-fueled ‘Catch and Revoke’ effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups.” According to State Department officials, this effort would apparently involve reviews of the social media accounts of student visa-holders to look for “evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies expressed after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel”.

Rubio’s current actions seem to be the fulfillment of a year-long promise. On October 30, 2023, weeks after protests had begun to oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Marco Rubio penned an editorial in Fox News with fellow Republican senator Dave McCormick titled, “We have one word for terror supporters who abuse our broken visa system”. They wrote: “Foreign nationals supporting Hamas and their brutality against both Israelis and Americans have no place in our great nation. And they certainly don’t have a constitutional right to entry into the United States. In fact, their very presence here violates the law.”

Widespread opposition to arrest

Organizations and individuals across the United States have heavily criticized the arrest of Mahmoud and called for his immediate release. Through an online petition, over 500,000 people have sent letters to different government agencies, including DHS and ICE, as well as administrators and officials at Columbia University and Barnard, calling for the immediate release of Khalil from detention. The petition accuses Columbia University of being complicit in the campaign to criminalize student activists, stating: “Columbia’s continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible. Like many other Arab and Muslim students, Khalil has been the target of various zionist harassment campaigns, fueled by doxxing websites like Canary Mission. This racist targeting serves to instill fear in pro-Palestine activists as well as a warning to others.”

Organizations part of the Shut It Down for Palestine coalition including the Palestinian Youth MOvement, Jewish Voice for Peace, the People’s Forum, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, ANSWER Coalition, and Writers Against the War on Gaza, have called for a protest on Monday, March 10, outside the ICE Detention Center where he was first held in the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building.

Source: Peoples Dispatch