Trump can’t deport half of all Americans

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2025/03/11/trump-cant-deport-half-of-all-americans/?

Recent Columbia grad and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil had faced harassment and death threats for months. Finally, he went to his university pleading for help.

“I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home,” Mahmoud wrote. “I urgently need legal support.”

A day later, on March 8, DHS agents abducted Mahmoud from his New York apartment. He remained forcibly disappeared for over 24 hours.

Today, Mahmoud is being detained over 1,000 miles away from his home inside a notorious Louisiana ICE facility. The Trump administration has vowed to deport him despite his status as a U.S. permanent resident. 

These are the actions of an authoritarian government trying to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement — because they are scared of our power. Support among Americans for Israel has plummeted: Today, less than half of Americans sympathize more with Israel than with Palestinians, a 25-year low.

What happened to Mahmoud?

A recent graduate of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Mahmoud was a lead student negotiator for last year’s Gaza solidarity encampment.

Mahmoud and his wife were just getting home on Saturday evening when plainclothes DHS agents showed up at their door and forced their way inside. They even threatened to arrest his eight-months pregnant wife — a U.S. citizen — should she not allow her husband to be taken away. 

Mahmoud is a green card holder, which makes him a U.S. permanent resident. But DHS agents reportedly told Mahmoud during his arrest that the Trump administration had revoked his green card, something only an immigration judge can legally do.

Mahmoud’s wife and lawyer were informed that he was being held at an ICE detention center in New Jersey, but he was then moved again without informing his lawyers and family where he was being taken. For over 24 hours, his whereabouts were unknown — until it was reported on Monday that he was being held in a privately-owned ICE detention facility over 1,000 miles away in Louisiana — one known for the abuse of detainees, including medical neglect and sexual assault. On Monday evening, a federal judge ruled to block his deportation, but Mahmoud remains in ICE custody.

How did we get here?

Mahmoud was targeted because he spoke out for Palestinian freedom and against the U.S.-backed, Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. His detention marks a dangerous escalation, one that pushes this country to the brink of a full authoritarian takeover. But this didn’t happen overnight.

Last spring, thousands of students at over 150 college campuses across the country rose up to demand that their universities stop funding Israeli apartheid and genocide, constituting the largest student anti-war movement since Vietnam. Those peaceful student protesters were swiftly met with an unprecedented crackdown.

University administrators welcome militarized police to their campuses to brutalize students and tear down their encampments by force. Thousands were arrested. Cops used tear gas and stun guns, beat and threw professors and students to the ground, and shot them with rubber bullets. Students were suspended and expelled from their universities. Many faced felony charges. 

The mainstream media and pro-genocide politicians on both sides of the aisle were happy to cast student protesters as violent mobs — including President Biden, who condemned what he called “antisemitic” protests in April 2024. “There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” Biden remarked in an official address the following month. “Dissent must never lead to disorder.”

All of this laid the groundwork for the Trump administration’s attacks on constitutionally-protected freedoms. By attempting to acquiesce to the Right, universities have opened the door for Trump to destroy higher education — and all of our fundamental rights. 

Last week, the Trump administration announced that $400 million in federal funding to Columbia was being slashed on the grounds that the university had failed to sufficiently combat antisemitism. Yesterday, the Department of Education said 60 universities were being investigated for antisemitism, including Muhlenberg College, which went so far as to fire a tenured Jewish faculty member because she defended Palestinian rights.

What does this mean for our movements?

Right now, we know three things: 

1. The Right is accelerating their plans to dismantle constitutionally-protected freedoms and social justice movements.

A permanent U.S. resident could be deported in retaliation for exercising his constitutionally-protected right to free speech. Mahmoud’s abduction marks a major escalation by Trump and the far-Right — clearly intended to sow terror among student activists and throughout immigrant communities and silence people calling for Palestinian freedom.

2. The Right is trying to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement because support among Americans for Israel has plummeted.

Today, less than half of Americans sympathize more with Israel than with Palestinians, a 25-year low. 

Our movements have grown tremendously over the last 16 months — hundreds of thousands of us taking collective action across the country for Palestinians freedom — and our opposition knows that they are losing control of the narrative.

3. We must commit to solidarity — it’s all of us or none.  

The Trump regime is using attacks on the Palestine solidarity movement as an opening to dismantle civil liberties. They’re doing so under the guise of fighting antisemitism, pretending to care about “Jewish safety” as they shred First Amendment rights.

The Right is coming for student activists and immigrants. Soon anyone who opposes them — and all social justice movements — will be under attack. Those movements will not be able to win if they act alone. The only way forward is to build a united force against the ascendant far-Right.