1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

This detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia University who holds a green card, is a blatant violation of his rights and an alarming escalation of the administration's crackdown on free speech. The fact that he was arrested at his home by plainclothes DHS agents, falsely told his student visa was revoked when he in fact has a green card, and is now being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana without due process is unacceptable. Revoking visas and green cards of those who engage in constitutionally protected speech critical of policies or governments sets a dangerous precedent that undermines fundamental American values. Khalil was a lead negotiator in a peaceful campus protest movement. Detaining and attempting to deport him for such activism is a severe overreach of authority aimed at chilling free expression. This administration's escalating attempts to police speech under the guise of preventing "antisemitism" or supporting groups like Hamas are a transparent effort to silence criticism of the Israeli government's human rights violations against Palestinians. I urge you to intervene immediately to secure Mahmoud Khalil's release from unlawful detention, cease the revocation of visas and green cards as a retaliatory tactic against protesters, and uphold the constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly on campuses and in the public sphere. Failure to do so will only continue down this alarming path toward authoritarianism and the dismantling of core democratic principles.