https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/whats-the-best-argument-for-columbia-agitators-arrest-and-deportation/
For now, the Trump administration is trying to do what can be done within the confines of existing law. That law, construed properly, authorizes the government to exclude and deport pro-jihadist agitators.
Earlier today, we posted my piece about the Trump administration’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident alien (LPR) — i.e., a green card holder — who was reportedly born in Syria but claims Palestinian ancestry. Khalil has been a prominent figure in the pro-Hamas agitation at Columbia — as late as last week when he reportedly posed as a mediator between the university and “protesters” who occupied a building at Barnard College — an unlawful enterprise that resulted in nine arrests (Khalil was not among them). That uprising was evidently triggered by Barnard’s expulsion of two students who, hiding behind masks, interrupted a “History of Modern Israel” class by barging in and strewing Jew-hatred flyers around the room.
Early this afternoon, President Trump posted on his Truth Social site that the arrest of Khalil, whom he described as “a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University,” was “the first of many to come,” and that the administration would “find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
The familiar array of Islamist organizations and their media and Democratic Party allies is rallying to Khalil’s defense. The agitator’s apologists contend that his arrest and the government’s plan to deport him are illegal. A lawyer for Khalil has filed a suit in Manhattan federal court (the Southern District of New York) to try to block deportation and compel his release. Khalil’s allies are concerned about reports that, although he was arrested in Manhattan where he was residing, the Trump Homeland Security Department has already whisked him to a holding facility in Louisiana — perhaps hoping to deport him before the courts can intervene, or at least to try to litigate any lawsuits in a district the administration hopes will be more friendly than the SDNY.
