I thought green cards can only be revoked in rather limited circumstances. What is he accused of?

Not to pick a fight with you. It obviously does not matter to the people running this administration, I agree with you.

All societies exist on a "law" to "rule" spectrum, what determines whether you have law or rule is who the final arbiters of justice are.

If citizens themselves are the final arbiters of justice, you ironically live in a law based society. If those with power are the final arbiters of justice, then you live in a society with rules, not laws.

The absence of law is rule by those who are most powerful. The explicit purpose of law is to prevent arbitrary wielding of power.

With this understanding he's correct, because law is an entirely self fulfilling prophecy. If GP does not wish to enforce the rule of law himself, then there is no law.

The preamble of the declaration of independence states this idea more eloquently. The person you are responding to doesn't feel any personal responsibility for protecting a law based government, and if everyone feels that way, whoever has the most power gets their way, because who is going to stop them, who will provide consequences when the legal system is a weapon of the powerful, rather than a check on power?

No, this is mob rule.

> who will provide consequences when the legal system is a weapon of the powerful, rather than a check on power?

This is a bad case for making this claim. While at record lows, the sympathy gap for Israel over Palestine among American voters remains in the double digits [1].

The argument you’re looking for is the judiciary’s role in protecting minority rights [2]. In overruling popular will.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/american-support-israel-hits-record...

[2] https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/_file/Ross/Chapter_Five.pdf

I understand why you would say that, but I don't think you've thought it through, understood the point I'm making, and tried to disarm the strongest version of it possible.

Go and read the preamble to the declaration of independence, seriously. America was founded by citizens of Great Britain stating that they are the final arbiters of justice, not British courts. The British courts would have said the founding fathers are violating the law. They would have found them participating in mob rule, and they did try to put down that mob with an army.

You should answer a few questions:

(1) What is a right, and what is the relationship between law and rights. Does law grant rights, or does law protect rights?

(2) How does a government go from absolute monarchy (king is able to make all the laws and enforce them arbitrarily) to a law based society?

(3) How do you bootstrap a law based society? Can you make a law based society without breaking the law?

(4) Was the civil rights movement under MLK a form of mob rule?

That is literally in our founding document and literally citizens being the final arbiters of law.

That’s an uncommon reading of that line. Citizens can throw off the government. That doesn’t make them the final arbiters of the law. (Not even legal system. One point of that sentence is you don’t get to choose which parts you throw off.)

Justice, morals and—in my opinion—rights, yes. Even the right of the law to rule, yes. But the arbitration of the law? The particulars of its execution. No.

If the system of law is corrupted, you have to throw out the whole government. That’s why the attacks on our judiciary are so frightening. It’s really difficult to unfuck the rule of law.

The declaration of independence[1] was America's founding document, it laid down why the British colonizing the American continent felt they had a right to overthrow their government and secede. It was likely also written to create a mandate[2]/consent for the new ruling government. The document is extremely relevant to Americans right now who have forgotten its contents and what it cost.

It is somewhat of a culmination of the Age of Enlightenment[3], which is period where philosophical thinkers largely tried to make the "golden rule"[4] rigorous. John Locke[5] was a philosopher who wrote about the idea of a "social contract"[6] which is the absolute core of liberalism and "western"[7] ideals. The declaration of independence attempts to codify the social contract by instantiating it. The social contract is a philosophical idea, but the declaration of independence was a real world implementation of it. I think the french have their own.

A well armed militia is somewhat connected to this idea in that the 2nd amendment en-codifies the right to be able to withdrawal consent to be governed[8] when a government stops protecting rights. In many ways it is a canary in the coal mine for despotism. Technology however has advanced to a point where guns don't matter too much because a despotic government can prevent "free association"[9] with the use of a massive surveillance state that can detect "militias" growing before they are able to gather enough power to withdrawal consent.

Conservatism/Liberalism is a little confused in America. Liberals abandoned some of the core tenets of liberty, such as the 2nd amendment, solidarity, and making sure that those who violate the social contract experience consequences -- crime can't go unpunished and unjustices can't be allowed to fester. Liberals don't want to pay the maintenance cost of maintaining rule of law[10] because speaking truth to power[11] or meaningfully challenging those in power is dangerous. "Freedom isn't free" is a liberal idea born out of liberal philosophy despite conservatives saying it. "If none of us will die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny" is something some Americans grew up hearing from their fathers. Conservatives say a lot of liberal things, but don't understand where they come from or why they say them, creating a kind of "cargo cult"[12] Americanism where they perform American rituals without understanding the substance of those rituals. Conservatives largely aim to "conserve" christian culture, but the vast majority of Christians have almost completely abandoned the teachings of Jesus. Most of them will say things that are correct at face value, but they frequently aren't well educated enough to understand what they say, leaving them vulnerable to abuse.

I went through and gave Wikipedia links to many of the ideas presented because many of those ideas are much larger than the words themselves can convey.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_I... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_(politics) [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule [5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke [6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract [7]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_culture [8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_of_the_governed [9]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association [10]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law [11]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_truth_to_power [12]https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm

& You did well. Thank you for comment. Forgetfulness is not a luxury we Americans can afford at this juncture.

You acknowledge that this distinction doesn't matter to our government, so why pretend that the distinction matters? We should be screaming from the rooftop that it doesn't, because it's important to understand that right now.

If the government has no interest in the rule of law to attack its people, than the people need to abandon rule of law laws to resist their government. If we keep pretending that the rules matter to us while the government doesn't even pretend that the rules matter to them, we will be destroyed.

We should be screaming from the rooftops that it does (or else).

We got here in part due to this brand of lazy nihilism.

Courts are restraining Trump. It takes time. But they’re doing it, all the way up to SCOTUS. Trump remains popular, but it’s slowly eroding.

Want to know what nukes all of that? A couple of idiots going out on a joy riot.

The system that divorces people from reality is social media, so as long as social media is pumping un-reality into people's lives, I think you're being rather optimistic. What's happening right now is directly empowering social media oligarchs, so they have absolutely no reason to stop. The foundation of their power is un-reality.

Hope is not a strategy.

It’s much easier to stay inside your bubble, where everyone else will agree with you that your kids and former friends just hate America, and avoid dwelling on it too much. If you’ve ever known someone who was in an extreme religion or abusive relationship, it’s pretty similar and the most reliable way to break the spell is some kind of outside shock which can’t be ignored. Trump might get that with the recession he’s working on but it’ll take time for people to accept that it’s real and was totally avoidable.

Once the enforcers are loyalists, it hardly matters how the courts rule.

How is it so obvious? What is an example where they broke a law and they continued to do so after courts ruled otherwise?

There have been a number of cases that were judicially reversed both in Trump 1.0 and 2.0. They may have non-traditional interpretations of the law, but to say they don't care about laws at all is filed under TDS. Obviously they do as it dictates the boundaries and therefore their tactics.

I’ll leave it to folks saying he has done something to prove it.

Even a statement is fine. The point is this argument is vacuous if both sides assume intent.

> I’ll leave it to folks saying he has done something to prove it

Sure. They do that in court filings. It just takes time. (And maybe it’s all bunk!)

I think it is kinda an insidious system where it is expected we would have a statement vs any possible bad thing.

I’m all for innocent until proven guilty. If this guy mailed a check to hamas directly then fine by me, otherwise I say prove it.

Sure. But they have no obligation to provide it to you right now. Anyone concluding confidently before we have court filings is obviously grinding an axe. (And it’s happening on both sides. No group has a monopoly on hyperbole.)

Yes we're posting on HN, I think we all know that...

The government - through the Biden and Trump admins - has been testing out the limits of student repression with pro-Palestine protestors. Think of it as a pilot program for seeing what they can get away with. As we have seen elsewhere, violent shutdown of university protests is one early step on the path towards more widespread repression.

It is fine to not care, but don’t start crying for support once your cause is on the gov’s radar.

If he’s organising support for a terrorist organisation or October 17th, yes. If he’s just voicing support for Palestinian rights, it shouldn’t be.

8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(3)(C)(i) "An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable"

This provision basically lets Secretary of State to deport any alien he deems in the future might post a threat to foreign policy. It does not appear to be a difficult standard to justify either and gives Secretary of State broad leeways in deportation of all aliens, including LPRs. That said, I am not sure it even technically constitutes "revocation" of green card. They seem to be able to simply deport you with a green card without needing the procedural burden of revocation.

All the other provisions outlined for cancelation seem to involve DHS (incl. USCIS) and Attorney General to cancels one's green card, and would not really be in purview of Dept. of State.

I doubt there is any single person in US history that has been more damaging to foreign relations.

The statue talks about Foreign Policy, not foreign relations. Foreign Policy is set by the executive branch, so almost by definition he cannot be against his own foreign policy.

It could be a President's foreign policy to sever ties with some allies, for example, if it is in the benefit of the American people as he sees it.

  Messages seeking comment were left with the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Ice.

I hope we find out soon what actually happened and why:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43314910

Yikes. Once the government has built that infrastructure and pipeline from monitoring to arrest, you think they won't use it for other kinds of dissent?

Why, isn't using it for this kind of dissent already enough? There's no freedom of speech anymore in the US if you go against the interests of Israel.

We don’t know if he materially supported Hamas. At that point it’s no longer just a speech issue.

We will eventually know the government is full of bunk. But that takes time. In the meantime, I think all we can do is note who is jumping to conclusions with incomplete information and who is prescient about objective facts (not forecasts).

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Very relevant in a court of law. Not really so in public opinion. I’m not saying we can conclude he deserves any of this, nor that it’s legal. I’m just saying we can’t conclude what happened was illegal without knowing the charges and evidence.

It’s similar to the laws that prevent former Nazi regime members from immigrating to the US.

As a non-citizen, you are held to more strict standards as to your conduct. Every country does this.

In Germany, they came for the communists first.

https://hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin...

- follow him in to his home

- refuse to identify themselves

- tell him his green card has been cancelled

- tell his wife they'll kidnap her too if she intervenes

- takes him somewhere

- won't tell anyone where he is, including his (8 month pregnant) wife and lawyer

allegedly they have done this because he's been loudly critical of the policies of a foreign government, which as everyone knows, is not a crime. as everyone also knows, random feds can't just kidnap you even if they think you have committed an actual crime.

Again, police don’t need a warrant with probable cause.

> he's being denied his right to an attorney

Source? His attorney is quoted in the article.

> refusing to tell his representation where he is even at

Source? The article states he’s at “an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey.”

There are obvious First Amendment and free speech issues with this arrest. Those get diluted if folks start making things up about the severity of the situation.

Thank you. This is concerning. I’ll keep an eye out for a statement from the lawyer. It may be that nobody is telling the press while the internet runs with the meme.

Yes you do. You can not just barge into someones home and perform an illegal search + arrest without extreme probable cause.. And nothing they say would rise to that level of arresting someone solely on probable cause because there's no clear imminent threat of violence. They were not able to produce a warrant.

> Source? His attorney is quoted in the article.

https://bsky.app/profile/premthakker.bsky.social/post/3ljxt6... [1]

It takes all of five minutes to get the latest update. His attorney does not know where he's being held and no one is allowed to visit him.

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/us/ice-agents-arrest-anti-israel-act... (the related Fox News article)

Search and arrest, yes. If police see probable cause to arrest from the street, they can arrest.

> because there's no clear imminent threat of violence*

Violence is unnecessary. If you’re caught shoplifting, the cop can arrest you without a warrant even if you weren’t violent.

> His attorney does not know where he's being held and no one is allowed to visit him

The tweet is from 9 hours ago. (Who is the source?)

The article is newer. We know where he is.

Okay then tell me: Where is he being held? Here's a quote from his attorney:

> "Currently, we do not know Mahmoud’s precise whereabouts. Initially, we were informed this morning that he had been transferred to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey," Greer added.

> "However, when his wife – a U.S. citizen who is eight months’ pregnant and was threatened with arrest as well by the ICE agents last night – tried to visit him there today, she was told he is not detained there."

Unlikely. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harisiades_v._Shaughnessy

Any alien (including an alien crewman) in and admitted to the United States shall, upon the order of the Attorney General, be removed if the alien is within one or more of the following classes of deportable aliens

So while you may or may not need a hearing to revoke a green card, AG Bondi seems to be able to detain and summarily remove you from the US, without the need to do a hearing to 'revoke your green card' if you fall under that statue. (Note that "immigration judges" are not real courts under judicial branch. They are under AG.)

Also precedent exists (Harisiades v. Shaughnessy) that suggests deportation does not violate the First Amendment in these cases.

Also there’s a bit of a wrinkle in the Harisiades case: first, it was written at the height of the Red Scare, and likely wouldn’t have concluded the same way had it been adjudicated after that ended and the Warren court era began. Second, the Court had to find that the Communist Party advocated for violent overthrow of the country in order to hold their membership as not protected by the First Amendment. Had it not done so, the court might have found that their activity was protected.

To be fair, the Court did not hold that aliens aren't protected by the Constitution. It avoided the question by holding that the aliens' activities weren't protected, and that Fifth Amendment protections are different (and less stringent) for civil process than for criminal process.

That sounds like a thought crime.

But besides all of those cases, what have the protestors ever done for us?

Either Palestine has a government of its own or Palestine is a part of Israel.

Then address that directly first. Ignoring the terrorist designation and going straight to not only voicing sympathy for them but outright supporting them isn’t something we want to encourage. (Note: I do not know if this activist supported Hamas.)

They usually don't dispute any of the atrocities there exists evidence for, they just insist that they are military acts of war by the armed forces of the Palestinian government and that terrorism is a category error, just like the Tet Offensive.

If say he sent money to hamas I might agree, but as far as the dialog / discussions surrounding Palestine and Israel these days it seems like any support for civilians on either side is inevitably presumed to be support for the worst crimes of that group's nation support for terrorism or anti antisemitism or such.

Eh, I’d draw a line between someone circulating pro-Hamas or pro-Netanyahu fliers and someone speaking to the plight and the cause. And I’d draw a further line between someone trying to enact policies favourable to them (note: not which they might find favour with, that’s much broader) or sending resources their way.

Someone says “pro hamas”… I’m not sure what they think that is.

This is absolutely not the moment to evoke that argument. Freedom of speech may not protect you from social or professional consequences, it absolutely protects you from arrest or criminal charge related to matters of speech.

This situation is clearly in the realm of the government punishing someone for a matter of free speech. It is not a "consequence" it is direct legal action by the state.

And the claim that being pro-Palestine is equivalent to being pro-Hamas is complete bullshit. Why even pretend that these things are the same? You can oppose the mass-killing of civilians without endorsing the terroristic government that those people live under. The argument that being pro-Palestine is pro-Terrorism, simply because Hamas is the defacto government of Palestine, is not a valid argument given what Israel is doing to Palestinian civilians. People aren't fighting for Hamas, they are fighting against Israel's war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Also it has always been the case that you can be deported for supporting terrorism.

https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/other-resources/terror...

https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/other-resources/terror...

Most green card holders will tell you they feel like a guest in the country. Getting involved in protests and supporting organizations on the terror list etc seems rather silly...

And is that what happened?

They also have the power to remove anyone without a green card from US soil, also at their discretion.

The only thing that matters is that this person is in the US on a visa (a green card is a visa), and that ICE wants to do this. That's the law.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1227

A lot such laws exist, because there has been a long fight between the federal government and various states about deportation (and of course, it's not just federal vs states, there's also states that want people in other states to get deported, e.g. New York vs Texas)

https://fox59.com/news/national-world/ap-us-news/ap-arrest-o...

https://www.newsweek.com/president-donald-trump-mahmoud-khal...

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-inf...

As a green card holder, he was covered on the other type (immigrant) which does not assume that you’re intending to leave the country. I don’t know anything about his personal life but as the spouse of an American citizen he should easily have qualified:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrat...

The key thing which separates a green card from a regular visa of either type, and why people tried so hard to get them, is that it offers legal rights such as the ability to sponsor family members for their own permanente residency and, most relevant, legal protections closer to a citizen’s.

Go down to the section on terrorist activities, click the link. That's what the claim is.

They probably invoked very particular section of the law which gives a power to the US Secretary of State to take green card in extraordinary circumstances of danger to the states.

The provisions you keep citing most likely can’t be invoked like this, and must involve immigration courts. It’s much harder for the state to remove permanent residents than visa holders.

You are miles out of your depth.

They didn't "invoke" anything.

It was written because most people here seem to be confused about the law - ie they think even if someone did what they say they are somehow protected. They are not. No one was derided because it was a hypothetical

Legal cases are often considered in this fashion - assume the accusation is correct on the facts about a hypothetical person - what is the law? Else you waste a lot of time and money figuring if someone did something only to realize "ok he did that, but as it happens, that's totally fine!". Once you are certain the claim is actually problematic, then you turn to the facts - did the person in question do it?

Notice these protests started immediately after a Hamas attack in support of Hamas. These protests specifically blocked anyone from discussing the hostages. Their demands were things like limiting weapon shipments to Israel etc. to weaken it while it was being attacked on multiple fronts. They avoided the "Hamas" branding but look who benefits...

The Israeli right-wing was strengthened since it pointed at "these idiots" and used global anti-sematism to rally the troops. Hamas benefited since it saw this as the collapse of international support for Israel.

Moderate Palestinians saw this as "Hamas succeeding" and moved further to the more extremist side. Moderate Israelis were essentially blocked from saying anything since the issue became: "Your either with us or with them".

They even harmed Palestinians by eroding support for Biden/Harris and strengthening Trump. It's astounding how bad and stupid these protests are/were.

These protests were not just anti-Israel, they were anti-Palestinian since they egged on Palestinians in a futile direction that would just lead to more death and pain.

Literally on the same day... You're thinking about the critical mass and media attention but they started way before.

I take offense at the idea that an anti-war and/or anti-genocide protest would necessarily¹ be "100% pro Hamas," since you could make the same argument about any similar protest with a drastic imbalance of power: pro-Ukraine, anti-Vietnam-War, etc. What I'm hearing is "stop struggling, you'll only make it worse" as dozens of Palestinian civilians are blown up for each murdered Israeli. The only way not to care is if you've dehumanized these people completely.

Wherever you get your notions from, they are certainly not coming from "logical people."

¹ (Which is not to discount that there were some anti-semitic and pro-Hamas protesters as well. My sense is that they were far from the majority.)

> I also take offense at the idea that an anti-war and/or anti-genocide protest would necessarily be considered "100% pro Hamas," since you could make an identical argument about any similar protest, e.g. pro-Ukraine, anti-Vietnam-war, etc.

There are several wrong things here. First you frame this as genocide which is wrong and problematic framing. Even the ethnic cleansing framing is problematic as people went back to their homes with the deal.

No. War protests can't be framed that way. But lots of war protests do more harm than good. E.g. Nixon won his biggest election triumph in a large part thanks to the hippies.

Also you're choosing to ignore everything I said which seems inconvenient and reframe things to fit a narrative. I understand that, it's hard to see ones own biases as they are being influenced by media/foreign powers.

There's only one road that leads to a peace for the Palestinians and that's a Palestinian state. Escalating violence failed for them for the past 150+ years, these protests aren't against genocide, they're against peace.

Here are some inconvenient facts:

* A year after Oct-7th they arranged rallies in support. They knew the amount of violence/murder and the price paid yet chose to celebrate that.

* The main excuse for war is the hostages. "Protesters" don't allow hostage signage and rip out yellow ribbons. They don't want the war to end.

* From the river to the sea means death to all Jews. Yet they keep repeating that essentially escalating the violence and preventing de-escalation by supporting Israels right to exist.

A lot of the people who are part of the protests don't understand these things. They are just ignorant of the facts, history and impact. But the people pulling the strings know exactly what these protests are, and they are bad news for the Palestinians most of all.

Elon Musk today called a US Senator (Mark Kelly) a traitor for traveling to Kiev and expressing support for the government there.

https://www.columbiaspectator.com/city-news/2024/04/24/i-am-...

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/30/24145737/columbia-suspend...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68923528

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/columbia-stalemate-cont...

https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/us-news/the-extremist-student-...

And if you want to have a fight about technicalities, you're both wrong. He didn't describe himself as either pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian. He described the protests as anti-Israel ...

As anti-Israel's existence, to be exact, not anti-Israel's actions in Gaza or anywhere else.

None of the links you provided substantiate the claim that Khalil spoke out in support of Hamas. Neither that he was an organizer of the protests.

But it doesn't matter.

Visas can be granted or withdrawn at the president's discretion. You're absolutely right that visa holders are protected by US laws ... but that doesn't protect them from losing said visa.

Deportation is also at the president's discretion. So the same applies.

But they are definitely protected by US laws. You cannot kill a them. You will get arrested for stealing from them. Even if they're being deported. But the executive ("the president"), ie. ICE, can forcibly remove any visa holder, from US soil, that is perfectly within the law.

In other words, no, you don’t. Talking to reporters is covered by the first amendment. Talking to school officials is covered by the first amendment. Being at a protest is covered by the first amendment. Simply at protest where other people do something illegal is covered by the first amendment, too. Unless there’s evidence that he was personally doing or inciting illegal activity, this should be textbook civil rights law.

> Green cards can be granted or withdrawn at the president's discretion.

Can you provide a citation to that law?

I bet any decent prosecutor can make the case that organizing (and defending) a protest that engages in violence is illegal, including when the organizer cannot be proven to directly participate in the violence.

And, frankly, (my personal moral opinion) that is just not OK to do. If this happens, you walk away. If you don't, there may be consequences.

But if you want to shout that there is no direct proof of this person directly committing violence, well, no, there isn't. Al Capone famously also never hurt a fly (or at least, never convicted for that), in the same manner: he organized violence against people, he did not do it himself.

> Can you provide a citation to that law?

Again, this will be subtle, so if you want to shout "so you CAN'T" again, you'll probably be able to. You will not get any response beyond that. Specifically what is not addressed in my response is the conflict between Federal law and States' law. But here you go:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/22/41.122

TLDR: the secretary of state (and thus the president) can request that a visa be revoked, and that's that. He is not limited in that. Here is the secretary of state announcing his intention to do just that:

https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5185620-rubio-ice-arr...

For a green card holder, apparently a (federal) immigration judge must confirm the decision.

Let them make case rather than contributing your credibility pro bono. That’s why we have courts, and also I feel compelled to note that the courts have tossed out tons and tons of those cases as prosecutorial overreach. Speculation without evidence isn’t going to matter in a fair court, and if we’re at the point where the courts no longer care about laws or evidence I doubt you’d want to be helping them.

If you look at past protests, there’s a pattern where the police arrest many people but ultimately only a few even face trials because even if something is unambiguously illegal like chucking a brick through a window or starting a fire, it’s hard to prove that anyone who isn’t right there approved or helped commit the crime. Going to a protest, joining a chant, waving a sign, or speaking up on behalf of the protest movement doesn’t mean you support violence unless you were specifically calling for violence. None of the links you shared showed him shouting for genocide and even the people who’ve been branding him as anti-Semitic rely on vague, sweeping claims which mostly seem to imply guilt by association. It’s always possible that a trial will show stronger evidence but I think almost all of the reaction here is that there absolutely should be a trial.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/us/politics/immigration-j...

3% complete.

But not for this asshole. Sorry.

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide ...? ”

Green cards can be revoked (and granted, e.g. like most presidents did with various groups of Cubans) at the discretion of the president. The president can revoke a green card if he gets asked a difficult question, and there is no recourse (and there is some precedent for this). The president has nothing to prove here about this person, other than perhaps that he is not a US citizen, but he doesn't claim he is.

Also this person is not being detained, the point is not to hold him, he's being moved to outside of the us. Or to use the technical term "deported". Again, something the president can do at his sole discretion. The intention is not to hold him, he is not in prison. There is even a procedure this person can choose to take to take a flight of his choosing outside of the US, to expedite his release. So I don't see how habeas corpus would apply.

Let's see if the courts are willing to consider habeas corpus, but I don't think a court case can save this guy.

(and frankly, this person organized protests where people got hurt, including where Jewish students and faculty where attacked - and hurt - for being Jewish. Obviously, he's getting financing for that somewhere. I hate Trump, but this guy is not getting much pity)

- massive citation needed on the 'this person organized protests where people got hurt'. Here is a pro-israel group that explicitly tracks antisemitic behavior, and all they have on the guy is that they don't like his speech: https://canarymission.org/individual/Mahmoud_Khalil

- greencard holders have very strong legal protections, including (of course) first amendment protections (see: https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/after-we-grant-your-green-c... -- "Be protected by all laws of the United States, your state of residence and local jurisdictions"). Those first amendment protections would mean nothing if USGov could just deport anyone whose speech they do not like without trial.

On the latter, though, it is murky -- Volokh has more details, including a lot of citation of legal precedent that goes both ways: https://reason.com/volokh/2025/02/03/may-aliens-be-deported-...

The problem, of course, is the 'detained/deported without trial' bit. You can claim whatever you want about what is or isn't true, but we can't ever adjudicate the question if it doesn't go to a court, which this admin seems to be trying to avoid. Specifically, if it turns out that he did NOT ever indicate support for any terrorist organizations (as determined by the courts), he would be free and clear even under your (imo ridiculous) standards, and this whole thing is a straightforward case of an authoritarian government compelling speech. Something that I'd hope the HN crowd is particularly sensitive to.

Being protected by the laws doesn't much help here - the law says he is a deportable alien if he has supported a terrorist group. There is various case law on what is and is not protected under the first amendment, but there isn't just a free pass to say whatever you want.

The case is quite straightforward indeed - if he did support a terrorist group (and I have no insight on what he actually did), he will be almost certainly be deported.

For those who aren't familiar, habeas corpus is an incredibly important civil right that effectively allows anyone who is detained to go to court to challenge the detention. Khalil's lawyers state that after they filed for habeas corpus, ICE moved Khalil to Lousiana without telling anyone. Extremely concerning.

Even if that is considered settled (which, personally, I find a pretty lousy interpretation of the first amendment), it would still make this arrest and detention totally illegal, at least warranting a lawsuit, even if deportation can't be avoided.

Hopefully I'm wrong. This whole thing is so destructive to the constitution, to personal liberties, and to higher education.

It's not more complicated than that.