I need to take a break. Current events are consuming me. I’m going to shift gears and try to stay away from politics. But I’ll recap and correct a few things I’ve been ranting about before I switch off.
First and most important, Trump shifted the Overton Window on immigration back in 2015. I remember it like it was yesterday. Somehow, people—even smart ones—had this idea stuck in their heads that everyone had a right to waltz into the US and stay. It got awkward to say the truth out loud: American citizenship is either yours from birth (and we’ll see how long that lasts—another shift’s brewing!) or it’s something you earn the hard way. We won that argument, folks. LET’S MOVE ON.
Now another Overton Window’s moving—this time about the First Amendment. People have dumbed it down into something it’s not. Here’s the deal: it’s about the government not gagging you or forcing you to speak. No one’s making kids say the Pledge in school, and you can’t go around making real threats—that’s a crime. Marco Rubio’s been breaking it down well, although some details get lost in trying to explain this to a mass audience — and the devil is in the details. But the Democrats, leftists, and too many others who should know better are clouding it up, either because they’re clueless or they’re cheering for Hamas.
I totally whiffed on something in yesterday’s post—it was already a novel, so I skipped it. I got mixed up thinking double jeopardy applied to Khalil’s hearing.
Double jeopardy is about not punishing someone twice for the same crime, but this isn’t a criminal proceeding and deportation’s not punishment—it’s about who gets to stay in the US.1 The government can haul out every scrap of evidence at his immigration hearing: every video, every photo, every violent incident at Columbia University and in the streets from 2023 on.
Khalil wasn’t convicted of anything? Doesn’t matter one bit.
What matters is this: Can the government prove Khalil was tied to Columbia University Apartheid Divestment (CUAD), and that CUAD was backing Hamas or Hezbollah—groups Congress calls terrorists?
If I were playing his lawyer, I’d argue it was all grassroots stuff, not terrorism—just protests against genocide. Hamilton Hall got trashed, sure, but that was Columbia’s crackdown, not Khalil’s doing. He’s a Green Card holder with every right to mouth off politically, and he never cheered for Hamas or Hezbollah.2
The government’s coming back with proof that that’s garbage. They’ll show CUAC’s a well-known fan club for Hamas and Hezbollah, and Khalil wasn’t just along for the ride—he was their mouthpiece. They’ve got him on tape leading rallies in Canada, abusing his Green Card, with crowds waving Hezbollah flags, yelling “Allahu Akbar” and “We’ll Cut Off Zionist Heads.” There’s a mountain of evidence he sees himself as Hamas’s errand boy. If the government makes that stick, he’s deported. No criminal conviction needed. Full stop.
If you’re an immigration lawyer and I’m off base, hit me with corrections.
Since I want to put this to bed once and for all and get everything off my chest and go back to the land of the living…two final things to nail this down.
For green card holders, deportation isn’t about crimes — it’s about “ineligibility” to stay. A green card like a VIP pass, or better yet, a contract. You’ve got to keep in compliance with the provisions of the contract, and that means more than staying out of jail. One big rule? No ties to terrorism. The U.S. says, “If you’re linked to a group like Hamas or Hezbollah—designated terrorist outfits—you’re a risk, even if you didn’t break a law.”
Khalil’s case isn’t about proving he didn’t spray-paint swastikas or that he didn’t punch someone; it’s about showing he’s cozy with terrorists and advances their cause in the country of his residence. The fact that he never got arrested for what he did speaks to the leniency of the countries he’s in, not what he actually did. Immigration doesn’t need a criminal conviction—they just need evidence (videos, speeches, whatever) that he’s in that world. It isn’t punishment. It’s “you don’t belong here.”
And that’s what really bothers some people. They think he does belong here. They don’t think Hamas or Hezbollah are terrorists either. They think the terrorist is Israel.
That’s why I think this case is crucially important. If the government screws it up or if a sympathetic judge disregards all the evidence in favor of CUAD’s obvious love for Hamas/Hezbollah and Khalil’s evident support for it, we’re cooked, we aren’t a country, we’re just a place where fat people go shopping.
Update: I noticed a typo, and in correcting it I realized that the ending was flippant. We’ll be worse than what I said. We’ll be a country in which Hamas and Hezbollah are legitimate political actors. I don’t want to live in that country.
Up next: Caitlin Clark and the WNBA!
The fact that hard core leftist’s are treating deportation from the pits of fascist hell as a punishment is ironic, but a side issue.
There’s a new wrinkle. He was “nabbed without a warrant.” Who knows who is telling the truth here? The agents allegedly thought he was on a student visa, he turned out to be an LPR… this may be bullshit, it may be because he didn’t inform immigration of his change of status, or that immigration is total chaos. I suspect chaos.
The bigger question is why Columbia never evicted him after his involvement with the encampment