On April 11, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, former graduate student from Columbia University and legal permanent resident of the United States, can be deported. Not to commit a crime. Not for violating immigration rules. But for their political speech, specifically to help the organization a Pacific Camp of Gaza solidarity in its university.
The case of the government against Khalil is depressed in section 237 (a) (c) (i) of the immigration and nationality law, a disposition of the era of the cold war that allows the deportation of any non -citizen whose presence is considered political. The evidence that the Government presented against him was a two -page memorandum of the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, stating without evidence, that Khalil’s “beliefs and associations” could “announce to the interests of the foreign policy of the United States.” Ironically, the ISLF document admitted that Khalil’s actions were “other legal.”
And yet it was enough. The mere invocation of “foreign policy” or “National Security” now operates as a legal enchantment, annulling the protections of the first amendment, due process and even common sense.
Khalil’s case is not an atypical case. It is the avant -garde of a broader strategy to silence dissent in the United States, particularly the critical dissent of Israeli policies or sympathize with Palestinian rights, using various legal tools. This use and abuse of the US legal system establishes a dangerous precedent that in the long term will damage US democracy.
International and academic student boxes, many of Muslim majority or racialized communities, also have a leg subject to surveillance, detention and deportation, or without accusations or bad criminal actions.
Among them is Badar Khan Suri, a visiting academic at the University of Georgetown and an Indian citizen who was arrested for immigration and customs control (ICE) at his home in Virginia and then transferred to Texas. He remains in detention, facing the elimination based on family ties. His American wife used to work as an advisor to the Gaza government.
Another example is Rumeysa Ozturb, a Turkish scholar Fulbright and a doctoral student at the University of Tufts that was arrested after co -authorship of a journalistic opinion article related to boycott, disinvestment, the movement of sanctions (BDS). Since then, an immigration judge from the United States has denied his release, labeling him with a “risk of escape and a danger to the community.”
Another recent case is that of Mohsen Mahdawi, a head of the Palestinian Green Card and Columbia Student Protest leader who was arrested by ICE agents when it was for his American citizenship interview. Now he faces the deportation of the occupied West Bank, which said it would be “a death sentence,” since it has lost family and friends for Israeli military violence.
Then, Momodou Language, a candidate for British-Gambian doctoral from the University of Cornell who filed a lawsuit against the administration of President Donald Trump, arguing that the executive orders aimed at pro-palestinian activists violated their rights of the first and fifth amendment. Despite demanding preventively and being legally represented, language efforts were indisputable by jurisdictional maneuvers and executive pressure. A federal judge denied his emergency mandate on March 27, and days later, he deported himself, saying that he no longer trusted the courts to protect him even with a favorable ruling.
There is also Yunseo Chung, a Columbia student born in South Korea and permanent resident of the United States who, well warned deportation thanks to a previous federal court order. Alireza Doroudi, a Iranian engineering doctoral student at the University of Alabama, was stopped in silence without explanation. Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student in Columbia, fled to Canada after the ice agents visited their department. The National Security Department (DHS) then published images of his departure, labeling him as a “terrorist sympathizer.”
In this political persecution campaign, the Trump administration has been largely based on immigration courts, which are not part of the Federal Independent Judicial Power under article III of the Constitution of the United States.
They are the administrative courts of the Executive Branch, specifically, the Department of Justice. His judges are appointed by the Attorney General, lack tenure and are subject to political supervision. The procedural protections available in the courts of article III, such as complete evidence, impartial review and due constitutional process, are substantially weakened in immigration courts.
Although federal courts can analyze the trial or deportation violates constitutional protections, such as the first amendment or equal protection, immigration judges are often empowered to govern based on the vague statements of the construction of the construction of the construction of construction constructions of construction constructions. Concrete evidence requirement. This double -way legal system allows the Government to avoid the Constitution while maintaining the appearance of legality.
There are numerous leg calls to reform this system of legal academics, human rights organizations and equally old immigration judges. The proposals have included transferring to the immigration courts of the Department of Justice and an independent judicial structure to guarantee judicial impartiality.
However, these reforms have consistently failed, largely due to the inaction of the Congress, as well as the resistance to the political resistance of successive administrations that have benefited from the malleability of the system. The executive branch has long seen immigration courts as a policy application tool instead of neutral award.
While this repression has focused so far on non -citizens with legal status, it could say extend to naturalized Americans. US Law allows the revocation of citizenship in cases of fraud, membership in terrorist organizations and other crimes. In his first term, Trump created a dedicated “denaturation section” within the Justice Department to follow citizenship revocations. Around 700,000 immigrants were investigated with the aim of bringing 1,600 cases to the courts.
Trump has now pointed out that he intends to collect his impulse of denaturation where he left it. If this legal tool against critical voices displays, this would mean that only citizens can no longer sacrifice whether the political opinions of one fall out of favor with the government.
As the Department of Justice, DHS and ICE have worked together in the campaign against dissent, they have regained public support from non -profit organizations. Groups such as Betar and Canary Mission have public credit tasks for identifying international students involved in pro-palestinian activism and urge their deportation.
Betar claims to have compiled a list of foreigners who described as “jihadists” and presented it to the Trump administration. The Canarian mission, meanwhile, launched a project called “Discovery of foreign citizens”, which publishes the names and photos of international students of batteries or anti -Semitism or effective antiisraele activism creating a blacklist.
While there is no official confirmation that the DHS or ICE has acted directly, in these materials, the close time between thesis campaigns and the application of the government has raised serious concerns that these political reasons and the federality and memory.
The United States is portrayed as a lighthouse of freedom, a nation governed by the rule of law, where freedom of expression is sacred. But Khalil’s case, and who likes others, paint a very different image. If your residence, citizenship, education or even physical freedom can be revoked to express political views peacefully, then discourse is no longer a right. It is a conditional privilege.
This is more than a legal overreach. It is a moral crisis for American democracy. When freedom of expression becomes political loyalty and when private black lists shape the federal application, the fundamental values of freedom, pluralism and equality before the law are dismantled.
What American democracy urgently needs is an action of Congress to establish judicial independence in immigration courts, the strongest protections of the first amendment for non -citizens and full transparency around the government’s agency in private idological actors. Anything except runs the risk of improving a two -level rights system and, ultimately, a country where dissent is deportable.
This is not just a test of immigration policy. It is a proof of democracy and the very soul of the nation itself.
The opinions expressed in this article are typical of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
