A Louisiana judge has ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student arrested by federal agents for participating in college campus protests, can be deported. Judge Jamee Comans said she had no authority to question the decision of Secretary State Marco Rubio.
This is not good.
Isn’t it the job of the judicial branch to check the Executive Branch and hold the President accountable? If judges can rule against decisions made by President Trump, why can’t this judge rule against Rubio?
There is a pain in my stomach as I imagine the Trump Administration using that statement to announce that judges have no right to question the decisions of the commander-in-chief—something members of the Administration, including Vice President J.D. Vance have already said publicly.
I am devastated by this news and distraught for the hundreds of other college students who are in the same situation. One thing I haven’t heard mentioned enough is that these “kids” have not been accused of or charged with a crime. Yet they are being held in an immigrant detention center far away from friends and family.
They sleep on bunk beds in a crowded room, and they are woken up every day at 3:30 A.M. to eat breakfast at 4 A.M. Lunch is served at 10 A.M., and dinner at 4 P.M. (Are they all 80-years-old?) Employees who work at the immigration detention center said the food is not good and is often rotten.
Free Mahmoud Khalil
So why are people who haven’t committed any crimes locked up in what’s basically a prison, eating shitty food?
Mahmoud Khalil had a green card and is married to an American citizen. They’re about to have a baby together any day now (she was 8 months pregnant when he was arrested by federal agents at their apartment).
This makes me sick. I have never ‘hated’ another person, but I can say without question that I hate Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Tom “marble-mouth” Homan for what they’re doing to these people and to our country.
Mahmoud Khalil had a green card, so he assumed, like everyone else, that the right to free speech and the right to protest were his rights as well (They are!). I would like to challenge the current Administration to explain why someone will be deported for hate speech against Jews (even though these people criticized the government of Israel, not the citizens), but not for hate speech against American-born Black citizens. Why is there only one country that has a law stating that criticizing it will get you deported or expelled?
I WANT TO HEAR WHY STRAIGHT FROM THEM!
We already know why, but I want to hear them say it.
I wonder if they realize that their new law and what they’re doing to foreign-born college students is DRIVING MORE ANTISEMITISM?
From reporting by NPR:
“Khalil will not immediately be deported. His attorneys have said that if he were ordered deported, they would appeal the judge’s ruling. Comans gave Khalil until April 23 to request a stay of his deportation if his attorneys believe he qualifies for one. And the judge said if they don’t meet that deadline, she will order him deported either to Syria, where he was born, or to Algeria, where he is a citizen.
“If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes,” said Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s attorneys.”
After the judge’s ruling, Mahmoud Khalil spoke to the judge: “I would like to quote what you said last time that there’s nothing that’s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness. Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process.
“This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family,” he added. “I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without [a] hearing for months.”
