ICE arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia protests, lawyer says
116 comments
·March 9, 2025danielmarkbruce
archagon
Did Mahmoud Khalil actually speak out in support of Hamas?
latentcall
Pro-Palestinian is the same thing as pro-Hamas according to AIPAC and the administration. So according to them, yes. According to logical peoples, no,
invalidname
Actually according to logical people yes. This is 100% pro Hamas.
Notice these protests started immediately after a Hamas attack in support of Hamas. These protests specifically blocked anyone from discussing the hostages. Their demands were things like limiting weapon shipments to Israel etc. to weaken it while it was being attacked on multiple fronts. They avoided the "Hamas" branding but look who benefits...
The Israeli right-wing was strengthened since it pointed at "these idiots" and used global anti-sematism to rally the troops. Hamas benefited since it saw this as the collapse of international support for Israel.
Moderate Palestinians saw this as "Hamas succeeding" and moved further to the more extremist side. Moderate Israelis were essentially blocked from saying anything since the issue became: "Your either with us or with them".
They even harmed Palestinians by eroding support for Biden/Harris and strengthening Trump. It's astounding how bad and stupid these protests are/were.
These protests were not just anti-Israel, they were anti-Palestinian since they egged on Palestinians in a futile direction that would just lead to more death and pain.
danielmarkbruce
No idea.
bloomingkales
How we can we help him get proper legal help and awareness on a regular basis? Is HN beyond sticky threads? Seems like society in general is, but ... we need sticky threads at this point.
Cyph0n
ADC is one organization that usually supports such cases. Here is their press release on this: https://adc.org/adc-condemns-ice-targeting-of-columbia-unive...
OgsyedIE
We could assess whether there are any big organizations separate to Hn and engaged on this issue already that could do with support, instead of needlessly duplicating their efforts.
bloomingkales
Well I guess this is the donation for the month: https://www.aclu.org/issues/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rig...
the_mitsuhiko
> who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney
I thought green cards can only be revoked in rather limited circumstances. What is he accused of?
tgma
Since the administration specifically brought up "Department of State" as one of the entities that helped with the effort, my guess is the action is founded on this specific statue, not the "terrorist support" piece in particular, despite the latter being the widespread speculation:
8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(3)(C)(i) "An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable"
This provision basically lets Secretary of State to deport any alien he deems in the future might post a threat to foreign policy. It does not appear to be a difficult standard to justify either and gives Secretary of State broad leeways in deportation of all aliens, including LPRs. That said, I am not sure it even technically constitutes "revocation" of green card. They seem to be able to simply deport you with a green card without needing the procedural burden of revocation.
All the other provisions outlined for cancelation seem to involve DHS (incl. USCIS) and Attorney General to cancels one's green card, and would not really be in purview of Dept. of State.
ch33zer
It says it in the title, he's Palestinian. Nevermind that it's likely illegal, we don't live in a world where that matters any more.
tgma
My hunch was there might be some legal overreach, but then I looked at the statue myself and per the provision I posted in this comment[1] it seems to be very much in the hands of the Secretary of State.
matthewdgreen
To be very clear, we do live in a world where the distinction between legal and illegal, right and wrong, matters. And we will always live in that world.
Not to pick a fight with you. It obviously does not matter to the people running this administration, I agree with you.
tgma
> It obviously does not matter to the people running this administration, I agree with you.
How is it so obvious? What is an example where they broke a law and they continued to do so after courts ruled otherwise?
There have been a number of cases that were judicially reversed both in Trump 1.0 and 2.0. They may have non-traditional interpretations of the law, but to say they don't care about laws at all is filed under TDS. Obviously they do as it dictates the boundaries and therefore their tactics.
hayst4ck
That's also incorrect in a certain way.
All societies exist on a "law" to "rule" spectrum, what determines whether you have law or rule is who the final arbiters of justice are.
If citizens themselves are the final arbiters of justice, you ironically live in a law based society. If those with power are the final arbiters of justice, then you live in a society with rules, not laws.
The absence of law is rule by those who are most powerful. The explicit purpose of law is to prevent arbitrary wielding of power.
With this understanding he's correct, because law is an entirely self fulfilling prophecy. If GP does not wish to enforce the rule of law himself, then there is no law.
The preamble of the declaration of independence states this idea more eloquently. The person you are responding to doesn't feel any personal responsibility for protecting a law based government, and if everyone feels that way, whoever has the most power gets their way, because who is going to stop them, who will provide consequences when the legal system is a weapon of the powerful, rather than a check on power?
RIMR
What the difference? Legal vs. Illegal only matters if it is enforced. If it isn't being enforced, then there is no meaningful distinction between legal and illegal.
You acknowledge that this distinction doesn't matter to our government, so why pretend that the distinction matters? We should be screaming from the rooftop that it doesn't, because it's important to understand that right now.
If the government has no interest in the rule of law to attack its people, than the people need to abandon rule of law laws to resist their government. If we keep pretending that the rules matter to us while the government doesn't even pretend that the rules matter to them, we will be destroyed.
danielmarkbruce
Supporting a terrorist organization is legal grounds. Section 237 of the INA.
heartbreak
Which judge ruled on his case? I can’t seem to find it.
danielmarkbruce
It's not based on legal precedent, it's right in the code. It was part of the "Immigration and Nationality Act", which most people refer to as "INA".
latentcall
They didn’t. No ruling exists. This dude was just black bagged.
easytiger
Making statements in support of or in support of the actions of a proscribed terrorist group.
jsheard
What statements did they make in support of Hamas or their actions? Forgive me for not taking that claim at face value given that literally any pro-Palestinian speech, no matter how measured, tends to get conflated with support for terrorism and/or anti-semitism. Even something as benign as wearing a keffiyeh in solidarity, which the ADLs CEO likened to wearing a swastika.
azernik
The closest to it is that the organization he represented supported resistance "by any means, including armed resistance" immediately after 7.10.23. But AFAIU they were very careful not to mention Hamas, positively or negatively.
duxup
Is being a "Palestinian activist" that?
JumpCrisscross
This argument would be stronger if either of you had sources showing what he has or categorically hasn’t done.
the_mitsuhiko
And that is enough to revoke a green card of someone married to a US citizen?
JumpCrisscross
> that is enough to revoke a green card of someone married to a US citizen?
If he’s organising support for a terrorist organisation or October 17th [EDIT: 7th], yes. If he’s just voicing support for Palestinian rights, it shouldn’t be.
easytiger
I would hope so
Cyph0n
Allegedly.
The government - through the Biden and Trump admins - has been testing out the limits of student repression with pro-Palestine protestors. Think of it as a pilot program for seeing what they can get away with. As we have seen elsewhere, violent shutdown of university protests is one early step on the path towards more widespread repression.
It is fine to not care, but don’t start crying for support once your cause is on the gov’s radar.
ever1337
This isn't the UK
morkalork
>Last week it was reported by Axios that Secretary of State Marco Rubio intends to revoke visas from foreign nationals who are deemed to support Hamas or other terrorist groups, using artificial intelligence (AI) to pick out individuals [on social media]
Yikes. Once the government has built that infrastructure and pipeline from monitoring to arrest, you think they won't use it for other kinds of dissent?
throw310822
> you think they won't use it for other kinds of dissent?
Why, isn't using it for this kind of dissent already enough? There's no freedom of speech anymore in the US if you go against the interests of Israel.
JumpCrisscross
> Why, isn't using it for this kind of dissent already enough?
We don’t know if he materially supported Hamas. At that point it’s no longer just a speech issue.
We will eventually know the government is full of bunk. But that takes time. In the meantime, I think all we can do is note who is jumping to conclusions with incomplete information and who is prescient about objective facts (not forecasts).
aaomidi
> We don’t know if he materially supported Hamas. At that point it’s no longer just a speech issue.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
daanlo
If you are based in the US, you should protest this hard.
In Germany, they came for the communists first.
https://hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin...
9283409232
Network state in full swing.
refurb
That infrastructure has always existed. The law 9 FAM 302.6 lays out grounds for inadmissibility.
It’s similar to the laws that prevent former Nazi regime members from immigrating to the US.
As a non-citizen, you are held to more strict standards as to your conduct. Every country does this.
danielmarkbruce
I was a non-citizen for years and felt I should hold myself to stricter conduct standards - not just for legal reasons but also moral ones. You don't ask to come into someones house and then complain about the cooking or start giving unsolicited advice on interior decorating.
Cyph0n
Of course they won’t /s
9283409232
I don't think they believe they can revoke his green card and deport it. If they actually can then they'll do it but what they want are the headlines and the fear.
bananapub
headline is misleading, as far as anyone can tell he's been kidnapped, not arrested. allegedly, they:
- follow him in to his home
- refuse to identify themselves
- tell him his green card has been cancelled
- tell his wife they'll kidnap her too if she intervenes
- takes him somewhere
- won't tell anyone where he is, including his (8 month pregnant) wife and lawyer
allegedly they have done this because he's been loudly critical of the policies of a foreign government, which as everyone knows, is not a crime. as everyone also knows, random feds can't just kidnap you even if they think you have committed an actual crime.
anon291
[flagged]
azernik
Only after a hearing before a judge. The State Department does not have the legal authority to revoke Green Cards.
JumpCrisscross
Have they revoked it? I thought he’s just been arrested. That’s something various police forces within State absolutely can do with probably cause.
rexpop
Feels like nobody ran an integration test, and we're about to find out that 1st amendment violations are an emergent property of a complex system riddled with accountability sinks.
easytiger
[flagged]
bigyabai
The Vietnam protestors were right, so were the people who protested the Iraq invasion. And the Watergate protestors had a few good points, then there was also the Civil rights protests that were pretty beneficial in the end.
But besides all of those cases, what have the protestors ever done for us?
blindriver
[dead]
OgsyedIE
How do you address the argument, frequently made, that their terrorist designation is illegitimate (because terrorist is a designation given to non-state actors) and they are in fact state actors (a government of a state) engaged in war?
JumpCrisscross
> How do you address the argument, frequently made, that their terrorist designation is illegitimate
Then address that directly first. Ignoring the terrorist designation and going straight to not only voicing sympathy for them but outright supporting them isn’t something we want to encourage. (Note: I do not know if this activist supported Hamas.)
OgsyedIE
They usually do. They regularly begin with saying that they are advocating for peace with a foreign country that we have supported an illegitimate invasion into and that all claims of terrorism are just propaganda.
They usually don't dispute any of the atrocities there exists evidence for, they just insist that they are military acts of war by the armed forces of the Palestinian government and that terrorism is a category error, just like the Tet Offensive.
blindriver
I disagree with that argument entirely.
OgsyedIE
Every land territory on Earth that is claimed by at least one government also has a government, correct?
Either Palestine has a government of its own or Palestine is a part of Israel.
null
duxup
>openly support terrorist organizations
If say he sent money to hamas I might agree, but as far as the dialog / discussions surrounding Palestine and Israel these days it seems like any support for civilians on either side is inevitably presumed to be support for the worst crimes of that group's nation support for terrorism or anti antisemitism or such.
JumpCrisscross
> it seems like any support for civilians on either side is inevitably presumed to be support for the worst crimes of that group's nation support for terrorism or anti antisemitism or such
Eh, I’d draw a line between someone circulating pro-Hamas or pro-Netanyahu fliers and someone speaking to the plight and the cause. And I’d draw a further line between someone trying to enact policies favourable to them (note: not which they might find favour with, that’s much broader) or sending resources their way.
duxup
My point being I have trouble understanding any of what anyone means when it comes to this topic. I’ve seen plenty of folks associate things together that don’t seem to follow.
Someone says “pro hamas”… I’m not sure what they think that is.
null
fzeroracer
We're supposed to be a nation of laws. They are not following the law in any respect for deporting a non-citizen who is 'openly supporting terrorist organizations'. Now what would you call a person supporting an action by the state that is blatantly violating the law?
blindriver
It has ALWAYS been the case that non-citizens who endorse terrorist activities can be deported from the US.
https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/other-resources/terror...
RIMR
>As people like to say, freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
This is absolutely not the moment to evoke that argument. Freedom of speech may not protect you from social or professional consequences, it absolutely protects you from arrest or criminal charge related to matters of speech.
This situation is clearly in the realm of the government punishing someone for a matter of free speech. It is not a "consequence" it is direct legal action by the state.
And the claim that being pro-Palestine is equivalent to being pro-Hamas is complete bullshit. Why even pretend that these things are the same? You can oppose the mass-killing of civilians without endorsing the terroristic government that those people live under. The argument that being pro-Palestine is pro-Terrorism, simply because Hamas is the defacto government of Palestine, is not a valid argument given what Israel is doing to Palestinian civilians. People aren't fighting for Hamas, they are fighting against Israel's war crimes against the Palestinian people.
blindriver
I didn't mention anything about Palestine or Hamas? I just gave a blanket statement saying that I support any non-citizen who openly supports a terrorist organization being deported.
Also it has always been the case that you can be deported for supporting terrorism.
https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/other-resources/terror...
RIMR
Buddy, this is a discussion about an article. If your comment isn't in relation to the article, that's your issue, because everyone else is talking about the article.
rahimnathwani
[flagged]
If you hold a green card and support an organization which has been deemed a terrorist organization by the US government, you are taking a giant risk and are quite likely to be deported (legally). Section 237 of INA explicitly calls it out.
Most green card holders will tell you they feel like a guest in the country. Getting involved in protests and supporting organizations on the terror list etc seems rather silly...