The US assault on free speech is not going to end with Mahmoud Khalil - Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian: "It’s 2027 and you’re doom-scrolling in your apartment while eating a single egg for dinner. (Eggs are now $30 a dozen.) You fire off a few angry tweets about abortion rights and go to bed. In the middle of the night armed police break down your door and arrest you for destabilizing the security of the state. You are detained and then – if you hold citizenship elsewhere – deported...."

Protesters rally in support of the detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil outside Columbia University in New York on Friday. Photograph: Jason DeCrow/AP

The US assault on free speech is not going to end with Mahmoud Khalil

Arwa Mahdawi

The significance of the Trump administration’s arrest and threat to deport the Palestinian activist cannot be overstated

Sat 15 Mar 2025 09.00 EDT

Last modified on Sat 15 Mar 2025 09.02 EDT

First, they came for Mahmoud Khalil

It’s 2027 and you’re doom-scrolling in your apartment while eating a single egg for dinner. (Eggs are now $30 a dozen.) You fire off a few angry tweets about abortion rights and go to bed. In the middle of the night armed police break down your door and arrest you for destabilizing the security of the state. You are detained and then – if you hold citizenship elsewhere – deported.

Not so long that sort of scenario happening in the US, where the first amendment protects free speech, would have been implausible. Now, however? It’s creeping closer. As I write this, the Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil is in immigration detention after being arrested and marked for deportation because of his pro-Palestinian activism.

Green card holders can normally only be stripped of their immigration status if they have been convicted of a crime, which Khalil has not. But the Trump administration is rooting around to find any possible excuse to deport Khalil and make an example of him. Earlier this week, Donald Trump called Khalil’s arrest the first “of many to come”, and said he would deport students he said engage in “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity”. And let’s be very clear here: doing anything in support of Palestinians – or simply existing as a Palestinian – seems enough to count as being “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, [and] anti-American” for Trump, who has repeatedly used the word “Palestinian” as a slur.

The significance... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/15/mahmoud-khalil-free-speech-civil-liberties

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