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America owes Mahmoud Khalil nothing

By David Harsanyi

Published Oct. 9, 2026

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Pro-terrorist activist Mahmoud Khalil was asked by CNN the other day if he would condemn Hamas. He, of course, would not, calling the question "silly" and "disingenuous." It is not "black and white," he whined.

Even if you oppose Israel's reaction to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the answer is still black and white for any person with a conscience. Certainly, it should be for any person who wants to become a naturalized citizen of the United States. After all, Hamas is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization for, among other things, murdering Americans.

But the fact that Khalil can't condemn Hamas — and anyone paying attention understands that he supports the terrorist army — not only tells us that he deserves to be deported but also that it's imperative we deport him.

During the 1960s and 1970s, immigration officials grilled newcomers to the U.S. and elsewhere about their affiliations with communist parties. Why would we import people who want to destroy our system? Newcomers were, and still are, compelled to disavow associations with illiberal movements, violent groups, and ideologies. They were also required to promise not to engage in any subversive or revolutionary activity.

Well, Khalil's entire job as an "activist" is to engage in subversive or revolutionary activity.

Khalil is an Algerian, incidentally, not a Palestinian, though he is a champion of Palestinianism, one of the most nihilistic, bigoted, violent, anti-Western ideologies of the age. There's no anti-American or Marxist protest or riot anywhere in the world these days where Palestinian flags are not prominent.

The French, of course, don't need much impetus to riot. But protests that began over a lack of school funding a few weeks ago have now escalated into increasingly destructive and violent riots across France, clearly fueled in part by Marxist pro-Palestinian elements. The red-green alliance between Islamists and communists isn't new — it's just more popular than ever. France has over 5 million Muslims.

What you see happening on the streets of Paris is exactly what Khalil hopes to see in the U.S. We saw as much when he was the lead "negotiator" for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which rioted at the school in 2025. The group's goal is to fight for the "total eradication of Western civilization," "global intifada," and the "armed resistance" of Hamas. That doesn't sound very American.

Khalil's friend, Mohsen Mahdawi, another leader of CUAD fighting against deportation, reportedly has a propensity to make Hamas-like statements, such as "I like to kill Jews," "soon, very soon, we will annihilate the Jews," and that "servants of the Jews or the Americans" will have their heads "cut off." Would we give citizenship to a foreigner who said, "I like to kill blacks" or "I like to kill Christians"? I hope not.

Khalil is being deported for lying on his application, though he was initially picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for threatening U.S. foreign policy. These deportations should not be treated as a matter of botched paperwork but as a matter of national security.

The problem is that it's taken years and likely millions of dollars in legal fees to deport Khalil and Mahdawi. If it's this difficult and expensive to kick out anti-American agitators, it would be far better to block their entry in the first place.

Even if you are staunchly pro-immigration, surely you would rather bestow the gift of citizenship on decent people who embrace the ethos and social cohesion we've enjoyed in the U.S. than on extremists.

Yes, free speech is a universal right. And while I support Khalil's natural right to express himself unfettered in his home country of Algeria, or anywhere else he ends up living, there is no unfettered right to be in the U.S. There is certainly no unfettered right to citizenship.

And the only useful adjective to describe the act of knowingly handing it to people who incite unrest and detest us is suicidal.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

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