Who Is Mahmoud Khalil?

He won’t be missed. He in this case is Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, lately become a culture hero to the radical left.

You see, the Trump administration has revoked his student visa and his green card. It has charged him with promoting anti-Semitic agitation on the campus of Columbia University.

His followers are horrified that he does not have the right to organize anti-Semitic rallies and to prevent Jewish students from going to class at Columbia. They are fighting for his constitutional rights, such as they are.

According to the law, this qualifies him for deportation. Brooke Goldstein explains:

There is a false controversy surrounding the arrest and hopefully deportation of Mahmoud Khalil. I’m going to put it to bed. Khalil’s deportation has nothing to do with your free speech. Khalil is facing deportation because of his conduct, including, allegedly, organizing a violent takeover of US campuses with pro-terror elements, conspiring to commit civil rights violations and trespass, building takeovers — this is criminal activity that endangers public safety, and of course endorsing and espousing terrorist activity in contravention of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Better yet, we have the words of Secretary of State, Marco Rubio:

No one has a right to a student visa! We have a right to deny you for any reason. Being a supporter of Hamas… being complicit in crimes… if you told us, that’s what you intended to do when you come to America, we would’ve never let you in! And if you do it once you get in, we’re gonna revoke it and kick you out.

Hannah Meyers offers her views in the City Journal:

Whether it’s restoring order on campus or formulating a new policy on Gaza, the same principle applies: anonymous violence is unacceptable. Gazans don’t deserve to live next door to Israel if they use tunnels and masks to make Israel unlivable for Israelis. Columbia and Barnard students don’t deserve to attend the university if they remain intent on undermining education and menacing Jews. And Mahmoud Khalil does not deserve American residency if he uses his time here to support a murderous international movement.

Trying to shed some more light on the issue, Yale Law Professor Jed Rubenfeld, husband of the Tiger Mom, offers a balanced legal analysis. He opens with the obvious fact that if Khalil were a citizen, there would be no problem. He would have a constitutional right to militate, against America and against Israel. He would have a right to work to destroy Western civilization.

If Khalil were being prosecuted in a criminal case, as Abrams was back in 1919—for example, under a statute prohibiting seditious dissent—his First Amendment rights would be violated and would protect him. But Khalil is not being prosecuted; he is in deportation proceedings. And those who support Khalil’s deportation will say this makes all the difference, because as the Supreme Court held in 1953, “Courts have long recognized the power to expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government’s political departments largely immune from judicial control.”

So, we need to be able to distinguish between criminal proceedings and deportation proceedings. Khalil is being deported; he is not being prosecuted.

Rubenfeld continues:

 In other words, Khalil was on notice that if he chose to come to this country on a student visa, America’s hospitality was conditional on his refraining from endorsing terrorist acts. People can consent to limitations on their constitutional rights when they accept governmental benefits. By choosing to come to this country and enjoying America’s protections and educational system—the argument would go—Khalil accepted the conditions that Congress imposed on him and cannot now try to evade them.

The law professor concludes that if the case is heard in Manhattan, the Hamas supporter will be allowed to stay in the country. But, if the case is tried in Louisiana he will be shipped off to Syria or to Gaza.