ATTACKS ON CONSTITUTION BY TRUMP - UNJUST ARREST OF PERMANENT RESIDENT

Last week Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and detained shortly after obtaining legal permanent residence in the United States, allegedly on the basis of his activities against Israel and in support of Palestinian rights at Columbia University in New York where he was studying.

Khalil came to the United States on a student visa and recently became a legal permanent resident through marriage to a US citizen with whom he will soon have a young child. Last weekend he was detained and arrested by ICE. First they were supposedly going to cancel his student visa and deport him, but when his lawyer told the ICE officers that he was a legal permanent resident, they said that they were also going to take away his legal permanent residence.

This is an example of the lack of preparation and information of the officers with their plans to arrest him. Khalil has been one of the students active in the protests over the last year against the Israeli bombings in Gaza after the brutal attack on October 7 against the Israelis by the Hamas group.

Khalil has never been arrested or committed any crime before, although he has been a spokesperson at several pro-Palestinian protests over the past year. Many lawyers and civil rights experts, including those specializing in immigrants' rights, were shocked to learn that ICE authorities arrested Khalil with the intention of deporting him, even though he has never been convicted of a crime.

According to ICE and Trump's spokespeople, he was arrested because he was allegedly involved in terrorist activities, but he has never been convicted of terrorism either. This is the first time they have tried to deport someone for participating in protest activities within the United States.

Trump also said that Khalil is anti-Semitic because he has allegedly spoken out against Jews, although I am Jewish and obviously I am also against anti-Semitism, I do not agree, what's more, the protests in which he took part also included several Jews who spoke out against Israeli policy and the philosophy of Zionism, not directly against Jews.

After his arrest, he was apparently quickly transferred out of New York and is being held in Louisiana, far from his family, where he is awaiting deportation charges. A federal judge in New York has said that he cannot be deported for the time being and his lawyers are challenging the legality of the action. For me, as for many other lawyers, this is something amazing because we see how Trump and his allies want to use immigration laws and certain statuses such as that of student and even the highest status, that of legal permanent resident, before becoming a citizen of the United States, and take it away from a person because of their political perspectives or opinions, which are not popular with the government of the day.

Trump has been attacking Columbia University, where several protests have recently taken place, and he announced the cancellation of more than 400 million dollars of federal financial aid for supposedly anti-Semitic activities. This is also being challenged in the courts.

This is very unfortunate as the United States has always been a country recognized for freedom of expression and protest, but according to Trump it does not exist for immigrants, even though the constitution gives them the same rights. Once again they are using this to play politics knowing that the protests have not been very popular among Trump's followers. We must fight for the upholding of the constitution and rights for all, including immigrants, and protest for freedom for Mahmoud Khalil.