Trump's free speech assault is worrying – even if he's right to deport protester | Opinion
If the Trump administration, as well as others in the future, make these deportations a common occurrence, resident aliens within our country will essentially no longer get to enjoy free speech.
Last week, the Trump administration announced that they would be seeking the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student who led anti-Israel protests on campus following Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Despite the legal questions surrounding the deportation proceeding, it appears that the Trump administration’s action is legal from a process standpoint. The president seems to have authority to deport green card holders based on actions that would have prevented them from entering the country in the first place.
However, this doesn’t mean this action is without negative consequences. Not everything legal is purely good, or even good at all.
While I agree with the decision to seek deportation in this case, Americans should be concerned about the free speech implications of deporting Khalil and the further exploration of this power.
Trump administration's actions on Mahmoud Khalil chill free speech
Despite the legal battles going on surrounding the administration's attempt to deport Khalil, I’m inclined to agree with many of the conservative experts who have found the administration's action to be legal.
The executive branch has the ability to deport those who act in detriment to the foreign policy goals of the United States. While green card holders, like Khalil, are afforded additional due process guardrails than temporary visa holders, if the government meets the burden of proof needed to deport them then officials are entirely within their rights to do so.
The extent of Khalil's individual participation is not fully known publicly yet, but he is often cited as an organizer of Columbia’s New York campus, where students illegally occupied campus buildings and the Trump administration claims “pro-Hamas propaganda” was distributed.
The administration alleges that Khalil helped to distribute flyers featuring images of now-dead Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, as well as other examples of Hamas imagery. Other posters depict a boot stomping on a Star of David or bear the term "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood," the codename for the Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people.
Again, I agree with the deportation in this case. But what happens when a future Democrat administration seeks to deport a green card holder who is protesting outside of an abortion clinic? Would Republicans have defended the right of the Biden administration to deport green card-holding parents who were deemed terrorist threats for protesting local school board actions?
As free speech advocates have pointed out, Khalil's detainment is almost certainly to have a chilling effect on free speech among noncitizens in our country. Resident aliens are almost certain to take into account the risk of their speech resulting in their deportation before they share their views.
Furthermore, not every resident alien understands the nuances of the law to the extent that pundits do, meaning that they are likely to err on the side of caution and avoid public political speech altogether.
This chilling effect is particularly worrying because of the unavoidable fact that there is viewpoint discrimination in those being targeted by deportation. It's pretty clear to many free speech advocates, including myself, that the Trump administration is enforcing their view of immigration law based on their viewpoint.
The Trump White House's hypocrisy is on full display
As The Dispatch’s Nick Catoggio highlighted, the Trump administration has not taken the same approach to antisemites aligned with the right, such as Andrew and Tristan Tate. Although their case is different, given that they are U.S. citizens, the Tate brothers were recently enabled to return to the United States from Romania with the assistance of the Trump administration.
The pair have a long history of antisemitic behavior, but Trump and many of his supporters are willing to brush that to the side given their right-wing politics.
None of this is to say I sympathize with Khalil. As a matter of fact, I despise everything that he's accused to have done on the campus of Columbia University. I even agree that he is likely one of the most extreme cases, and that his green card being revoked is a perfectly reasonable response to the allegations against Khalil, so long as it ends up being accurate and legal.
However, I am worried about the implications of this power and how it can be used in the future. We don't want an executive branch that decides what constitutes terrorist activity, and what speech constitutes support for said terrorists.
Trump has promised this will be "the first arrest of many to come." U.S. officials have pursued two others, one justifiably so for having an expired visa and another accused of "advocating for violence and terrorism."
While I agree that all participants of these student protests are lending ideological support for Hamas in practice, not every student has that intention. There are reasonable objections to the ways that Israel has conducted its military response in Gaza, which is something people on the right don't like to admit. Plenty of college students object to Israel's methodology in combatting Hamas, rather than their right to defend themselves altogether.
Thus far, the Trump administration has kept these immigration actions narrow, to those who have actively promoted Hamas or advocated for violence.
Utilizing this power may be good policy in these cases, but it opens up countless possibilities for abuse by this administration and future administrations.It should be reserved for only the worst offenders, namely the organizers of such vile demonstrations, who are actively encouraging America's college campuses to turn into terror-sympathizing hot spots.
Not everything is cut and dry, as much as pundits want you to think it is
There is not a clear-cut debate. There should be consequences for resident aliens who spread support for hostile terrorist organizations on our campuses, but the administration's actions certainly open up unnerving possibilities for the use of the deportation power.
In my view, this power should be exercised sparingly. If the administration opens this up to any student studying in America on a visa who engaged in anti-Israel protests, then the detriment to free speech will be far too great.
If the Trump administration, as well as others in the future, make these deportations a common occurrence, resident aliens within our country will essentially no longer get to enjoy the right of free speech. While they don’t have the rights of citizens, it's about whether America ought to be a place where speech is silenced.
As much as I personally despise the actions of Khalil and other campus anti-Israel protests, I disagree with those who think resident aliens don't enjoy any level of speech protections. The Dispatch’s Catoggio characterized it as the rights of a “tenant, possessing fewer rights than a landowner but a lot more than a ‘guest.' ”
If true, can Trump deport any noncitizen who says something critical of him? Can he deport them just because he feels like it? Certainly there are some rights afforded to this class of people, less than that of citizens but more than that of illegal immigrants. Maybe the Supreme Court will eventually clarify the matter.
The Trump administration's officials should exercise caution when it comes to pushing the boundaries for free speech, even when it comes to noncitizens. Though caution is not in their MO, I hope they at least weigh the free speech interest in these cases before jettisoning legal residents.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for Paste BN and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.