There’s more to this story than the story itself.
In Donald Trump‘s USA, the proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil are an American tolerance test.
At the heart of it is the US Constitution itself and the First Amendment that enshrines the right to free speech.
Mahmoud Khalil is the measure of where it starts and where it ends – the fate of others will turn on his test case.
As President Trump put it, his arrest is the first of “many to come”, citing students who had “engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity”.
Khalil, born in Syria to Palestinian refugees, arrived in the US on a student visa.
The 30-year-old holds a green card and is a permanent resident of the United States.
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Khalil’s role during protests
He became prominent during pro-Palestinian demonstrations at New York’s Columbia University last year, acting as a mediator between protesters and university officials.
Currently, he is in a detention centre in Louisiana, having been arrested by immigration officers outside his Manhattan apartment last week.
The legal reason given is “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the United States.
What has the White House said?
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has claimed Khalil “organised group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda, fliers with the logo of Hamas”.
Khalil’s legal team insist there’s no evidence to support the White House claims and say the government is targeting him merely for holding a view contrary to theirs.
Read more:
Trump calls detained student activist ‘anti-American’
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Khalil’s supporters argue that the case exposes a willingness by the Trump administration to clamp down on opposition and to undermine fundamental freedoms ringfenced in law.
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According to the government’s own guidance, there are “many others” lined up for the same treatment, depending on court decisions in the coming days.
On so many levels, the legal view will shape the politics of change under Trump 2.0 and how far change extends.
