Op-ed: It’s Absolutely Legal to Deport Hate-Monger Mahmoud Khalil

Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader slated for deportation, released a letter proclaiming that he is “a political prisoner” and that “my arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech.”

This is false.

First, Khalil is not a political prisoner. He is free to leave the United States whenever he chooses.

Second, as an alien, he does not have the same First Amendment rights as an American citizen.

Brandenburg v. Ohio, the 1969 decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment does not allow persons to be subject to criminal penalty for endorsing or espousing terrorist activity, has an important caveat: Brandenburg does not protect speech “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” that is “likely to incite or produce such action.”

Did Khalil incite pro-Hamas protesters to illegally occupy and vandalize a Columbia campus building? Did he incite the protesters to threaten Jewish students with violence or bar them from entering Columbia classrooms?

The Trump administration argues that he did. But even if he didn’t, it’s still not the end of the argument.

. . .

[Read the rest at the New York Post]