Trump Admin Seeking to Deport Israel Critic as a 'Foreign Policy Threat,' Not Lawbreaker

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Mar. 11, 2025

The Trump administration is seeking to deport "anti-Semitic" pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil not because he broke any law but instead because his political activism poses a "national security risk" that threatens US "foreign policy."

"The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law," a White House official told Bari Weiss' Free Press.

So there's no claim that this person violated any laws -- just that his political speech makes him a "national security risk" because he espoused views "contrary to the foreign policy of the US." Hard to recall a more blatant and unapologetic abridgment of the First Amendment pic.twitter.com/SYpwBHIWsy
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 11, 2025

From The Free Press, "The ICE Detention of a Columbia Student Is Just the Beginning":

On Saturday evening, federal immigration authorities arrested an anti-Israel activist who helped lead protests against the Jewish state on Columbia University’s campus after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. As progressive activists and free speech advocates protested the move to revoke Mahmoud Khalil’s green card over civil liberties concerns Monday, President Donald Trump warned that Khalil’s arrest would be the first “of many to come.”

Indeed, a White House official told The Free Press that the basis for targeting Khalil is being used as a blueprint for investigations against other students.

Khalil is a “threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States,” said the official, noting that this calculation was the driving force behind the arrest. “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” said the official.

“He was mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the U.S.,” said the official, noting the Trump administration reviewed intelligence that found Khalil was a national security risk.

"The Trump administration is seeking to deport Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil specifically via INA Section 237 (a)(4)(C) after Secretary Rubio "found that his presence and activities in the U.S. would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest, rendering him deportable," a senior State Department official tells me," Fox News' Bill Melugin reported on Tuesday.

The statute renders deportable "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..."

Zeteo reported Tuesday that a State Department source told them Marco Rubio did personally sign off on the deportation order.

Trump and his lackeys initially tried to justify the move to have Khalil deported by claiming he was some sort of horrible "pro-terrorist" lawbreaker but now they're just admitting he broke no laws and it's his opposition to Israel that makes him a threat to US "foreign policy."

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