U.S. President Donald Trump smiles as he returns to the White House from National Harbor following his address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) annual meeting, on the South Lawn in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Craig Hudson
One conservative commentator is arguing that President Donald Trump's administration is making a major error by attempting to deport an activist who has yet to be charged with any crimes.
In a recent op-ed for the far-right Daily Caller, author John Loftus tore into Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for its prosecution of pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil. As a graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil played a prominent role in the 2024 protests on the Ivy League school's New York City campus. Those protests became a national story amid Israel's military campaign in Gaza following Hamas' October 7 attack.
Khalil, who is married to a U.S. citizen (who is eight months pregnant), is being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana. His detention and potential deportation has already sparked protests: On Thursday, nearly 100 people were arrested at Trump Tower as part of a civil disobedience campaign to free Khalil.
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Trump has suggested that Khalil's status as a legal permanent resident may be revoked, though administration attorneys have yet to state in court what he's been charged with that would justify such a revocation. Khalil's attorneys maintain that his protest activity is protected by the First Amendment and that he has committed no crimes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pointed to a federal law that says any immigrant can be deported whose "presence or activities" gives the administration a reason to believe that there could be "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States" if they remain in the country.
"It’s almost too absurd to believe. Even if they attempted to deport 1,000 pro-Palestine activists because their actions in the Columbia protests were deemed to be 'pro-terrorist' by 'associating with Hamas', what difference would that make in quashing pro-Palestine/anti-Israel sentiment? What difference does it actually make to American foreign policy? How does one man’s activism have an 'adverse consequence' for the country?" said Loftus.
Loftus wrote that both Trump and Rubio are making "flimsy" arguments to justify Khalil's detention that won't hold up in court and could serve as a catalyst for more direct action in the future.
"[P]olitically, it’s a stupid fight to pick. If the Trump administration and other pro-Israel conservatives are worried about the shifting opinions of younger generations in their view toward the Jewish state, the last thing they would want to do is kick off a high-profile First Amendment battle with flimsy, if any, evidence of wrongdoing, and one that is based on an immigration law that gives the secretary of state the power to pick and choose who is deemed hostile to the United States’s foreign policy," Loftus wrote. "It’s a terrible look that will only galvanize the pro-Palestine movement, an impossible whack-a-mole game doomed to backfire. For every activist or agitator they attempt to deport, a dozen more people, maybe those who were apolitical before, will join their movement."
"[T]he political downside is incalculable," he continued. "If you don’t want activists to voice anti-American sentiments and don’t want to lose political independents who may view Khalil’s actions more sympathetically, maybe don’t do something that is spiritually un-American, such as deporting someone who doesn’t share your views and who hasn’t committed any crime."
Click here to read Loftus' full op-ed in the Daily Caller.