The Nation, JEET HEER, April 13, 2025

As with earlier Red Scares, Democrats laid the groundwork for the current crackdown on dissent.

The censorship of radical voices is an old story that’s become much more dire—and current—with the detention by immigration agents on March 8 of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student activist and permanent resident of the United States who has been at the forefront of protests at Columbia University against the Israeli onslaught in Gaza. In a statement to The Free Press about the case, a Trump administration official said, “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law.” Rather, the official continued, Khalil’s activism was “mobilizing support for Hamas” in addition to being antisemitic and “hence, [is] contrary to the interests of the U.S.” This claim is both factually false and legally terrifying. There’s absolutely no evidence that Khalil is pro-Hamas or antisemitic. But it is even more disturbing that the Trump administration claims the right to deport any green-card holder it designates a terrorist supporter based on speech alone.

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