Mahmoud Khalil wants to take the case against his deportation all the way to the Supreme Court — and if the justices accept it, they will be deciding one of the oldest and most controversial questions in American politics, a dispute more than 200 years old.
Khalil is not an American: He's a Syrian-born Palestinian, but he's here legally.
He's opposed to the policies of the democratically elected government of our country, and he's used the freedoms and privileges afforded to him on American soil to agitate for changing those policies in ways that would benefit Hamas and harm Israel.
The Trump administration saw no reason why a guest should be able to undercut his host in this way, so ICE began deportation proceedings — he was taken into custody at Columbia University, where he was a graduate student.
And then the courts got involved.
A New Jersey judge said ICE had to release Khalil because, in the judge's opinion, the case against him was likely to fail in the end on First Amendment grounds, and in the meantime he should be free to continue his Palestinian activism.
Judges in other cases have ruled noncitizens do have First Amendment free-speech rights, but a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania overturned the earlier decision that released Khalil from detention.
The big question still hasn't been answered:
When can America deport a foreign political activist?
If Khalil were a Russian demanding America end support for Ukraine, Democrats would in all likelihood be eager to have him expelled, though an administration like Joe Biden's might look for an espionage angle to justify deportation.
The Trump administration is not looking for pretexts; it's tackling the principle at the heart of the matter.
America's earliest presidents saw the question the same way President Donald Trump does.
George Washington famously proclaimed America neutral in the conflict between revolutionary France and Great Britain, but France deployed agents — including its de facto ambassador to America, Edmond-Charles Genet — to organize opposition to Washington's policy and drag America into the war.
The French revolutionary strategy was to go over Washington's head, appealing directly to the American people by setting up what we would now call grassroots activists groups and even the political organs resembling the beginnings of a political party, called "Democratic Societies."
President Washington even believed these radical, pro-French groups were responsible for political violence, including the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion.
Thomas Jefferson was madly in love with the French Revolution — he wrote in one letter he would rather see half the earth desolated and every country reduced to just an Adam and an Eve than let the French cause fail.
Yet even Jefferson recognized that Genet had gone too far and was subverting the government Americans had chosen for themselves.
The only reason Genet was ultimately not deported was because the unstable revolutionary government in France had changed, and the new authorities not only stripped Genet of his diplomatic role, they intended to execute him if he was sent back home.
The problem was much bigger than Genet, however, and Americans expressed their opposition to French radicalism by electing John Adams rather than Jefferson as president in 1796, along with a Congress dominated by anti-French Federalists.
To tackle ongoing foreign subversion, Congress passed, and Adams signed into law, the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Although liberal historians have subsequently demonized these laws, the restrictions they placed on foreigners' political activities were justified.
In fact, one of the three controversial laws — the Alien Enemies Act — is still on the books. It gives the president the broad power to deport any foreigner from an enemy country during wartime.
The Alien Friends Act, which specified the president's powers to remove foreigners during peacetime, didn't survive the election of Jefferson and a congressional majority from his party in 1800.
But there have been other laws since then that have reaffirmed presidential authority to expel foreign political activists in times of peace, and they remain in force.
Immigration law, for example, includes a provision allowing removal of "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."
It's a common-sense policy, and the power has to rest with the executive branch. Congress can't legislate for every circumstance, and judges should virtually never set national-security policy or usurp the elected president's role in making foreign policy.
Middle East policy is something for the American people to debate among themselves, especially when passions run as high now as they did when the French Revolution polarized American politics.
Mahmoud Khalil does not have a right to set America's policies, even through the indirect means of political organization and speech.
And if the Supreme Court takes this case and gets it wrong, it won't be the First Amendment that's saved — it will be our self-government as a distinct people that's lost.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Previously:
• 10/06/26: Latin America's Many Trumps
• 09/30/26: MAID in America?
• 09/22/26: Sore Losers Are Socialism's Allies
• 09/15/26: The Immigration Politics of a Felon's Pardon
• 09/14/26: Jobs and Manufacturing Are on the Ballot
• 09/01/26: How to Tackle Domestic Extremists' Foreign Enablers
• 08/25/26: Why Hasan Piker Mocks a Murdered Man
• 08/18/26: Dems' Southern Strategy
• 08/11/26: Homebuyers Deserve the Facts About Crime and Schools
• 08/04/26: Diversity, Equity, and Confabulation
• 07/28/26: Democratic Socialists of America vs. John Adams
• 07/21/26: Why Dems Can't Do Better Than Kamala Harris in 2028
• 07/14/26: Prescription for a Socialist Workforce
• 07/07/26: The Smithsonian's Patriotism Problem
• 06/30/26: Bill Maher, Liberalism's Apostate
• 06/23/26: Can Anyone Govern Britain -- or America?
• 06/16/26: University Professors Against Academic Freedom
• 06/09/26: Pope Leo Courts the Global Left
• 06/02/26: A Mass-Graves Myth Is Media Malpractice
• 05/28/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/26/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/12/26: Dems finally come clean 'bout their radical design
• 05/05/26: The Silenced Generation
• 04/28/26:Colleges Are Making Political Violence Worse
• 04/21/26:Immigration Amnesty by Any Other Name
• 04/14/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 04/07/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 03/17/26: Why Are Senate Dems Making Air Travel Worse?
• 03/10/26: Cuba Should Accept Trump's 'Friendly Takeover'
• 03/03/26: Immigration Enforcement Saves Lives
• 02/24/26: How a Party Offends Its Voters
• 02/17/26: Why Are Anti-ICE Activists Building Borders?
• 02/10/26: A Japanese Lesson for Troubled Britain
• 02/03/26: The Trump Coalition Wins But the GOP Brand Doesn't
• 01/27/26: Canada Should Warm to Trump's Arctic Plans
• 01/20/26: From Rock to Tech, Talent Flees Taxes
• 01/13/26: Woman Who Weaponized Car Against I.C.E Endangered Her Life -- and Yours
• 01/06/26: Tim Walz Personifies Dems' Decline
• 12/30/25: Harvard Says Yes to Discrimination, No to Western Civ
• 12/23/25: JD Vance Gets America's Creed and Heritage Right
• 12/16/25: Trump's Inflation Trap
• 12/09/25: Biden's Immigration Debacle Is the Media's, Too
• 12/02/25: 'Iryna's Law' and the Bad Judges Who Make It Necessary
• 11/26/25: Marjorie Taylor Greene's Exit Is a Warning to Republicans
• 11/19/25: Trump Hasn't Lost Hispanics (Yet)
• 11/11/25: Trump's Tariffs on Trial
• 10/28/25: MAGA Makes Allies Great Again
• 10/21/25: How To Make the AmericaS Great Again
• 10/16/25: Columbus Day Celebrates Our Civilization
• 10/09/25: Why Sharpies Are Made in America Again
• 09/30/25: Assata Shakur and Other Parents of Political Violence
• 09/09/25: Who's Accountable for Autopen Pardons?
• 09/02/25: Gender dysphoria is a mental-illness, NOT an all-encompassing delusion
• 08/26/25: Trump's Industrial Policy Is Realism, Not Socialism
• 08/19/25: Is Gavin Newsom the Dems' Answer to Trump?
• 08/12/25: Just Say No to More Marijuana
• 08/05/25: Will the GOP Make Libs Generous Again?
• 07/30/25: Trump's Trade Lesson for Economists (and the World)
• 07/22/25: Whose Politics Canceled Stephen Colbert?
• 07/08/25: A Big Beautiful Test of GOP Principles and Discipline
• 07/01/25: Dems Need Populism, But Not Zohran's Sort
• 06/25/25: Secure Borders Win Wars Like This One
• 06/18/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/17/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/04/25: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print