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It could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis, still banned from one of the top fifteen highest endowment universities in the country, but I am not banned from this podcast. Today, I'm joined by Robert Evans and James Stout to discuss the very troubling news of students having their visas and or green cards revoked by US customs in relation to anti genocide protests. James, this is something that you've been putting together a piece on for a while.
Yeah, repeatedly trying to warn people of Cassandra like to no avail.
Yes, yes, I do feel like we kind of saw this one coming a little bit, but that doesn't mean it's not bad. And specifically, the case we're talking about today, I think is particularly egregious because it doesn't actually involve somewhat visa.
Right.
So I've been working for a while on people who actually under the Biden administration were potentially facing deportation, right. But the material difference between that and now is that those people were facing deportation because the university removed their visas or the university removed them from the university, and therefore their visa was no longer valid. In this case, it seems that the order came directly from the State Department to deport a guy whose name is Mahoud Khalil.
So Khalil was a prominent activist in the encampment at Columbia right. But what's notable is that and the events here, as best we can tell, went down like this. Referencing an ap article here that will link in the show notes, ICE agents came to his front door, which is on university property, and told him that they were revoking his
student visa and therefore he was being deported. He then informed them that he didn't have a student visa, that he was a legal permanent resident right colloquially referred to as a Green card holder. They then told him or his lawyer. At some point he got his lawyer on the phone and was communicating with them through his lawyer. They then told the lawyer that they were revoking the green card, and at some point it's reported that they attempted to detain his wife, who was a US citizen, which.
Of course is not a thing that ICE can do.
So the difference between a legal permanent resident and a student visa is like the place I want to start this because they are materially very different.
Right.
Student visas are pretty fragile. People lose their student visas for lots of things all the time. A green card is a much higher barrier, and the revocation of his green card. We spoke a lot before this episode about like exactly kind of where this comes from in Trump's missmash of executive orders and speeches, right because after he was detained, we saw Trump truthing about specifically using the word green card.
We also saw Mark A.
Rubio tweeting about removing green cards, right, Rubio being a Secretary of State. Normally the green card wouldn't be a state department thing. Now, it seems the most likely course of events, as far as we can tell from what we know right now and today is the tenth of March, is that Ice came thinking he had a student visa. It's not particularly uncommon for ice raids to not have all the information on someone. From what I understand, I mean,
this is just a police thing. Yes, it's not just like the cops who are doing raids very often don't have all or accurate information. Yeah, ice in particularly very often don't have a judicial warrant. They have a warrant that they made they assign themselves, which is a different thing.
They're supposed to require warrant to get onto Columbia University campus, but as of now, I don't believe Columbia have clarified that they did have, and I think the apology also allows for them to allow ice on to cas in like exigent circumstances. So we'll have to see what exactly that warrant was for why exactly Columbia allowed them onto campus. So it seems like they came a temperature evoke this guy student visa, realized you didn't have a student visa,
detained him anyway, and then kind of exposed facto. The these tweets and statements came out. But Garrison, you found some stuff in. I mean, Trump has made previous statements that are kind of unclear, right. He uses the word aliens a lot.
Yeah, So we've been trying to kind of figure out the exact details of like what is going on, what justification they have for doing this, and how we can like extrapolate this out to larger trends because reporting like legal residents for college protests is pretty insane and Also the rhetoric coming out of the White House and like the White House like social media accounts around this incident is like extremely worrying, Like the way they're basically putting
up like wanted posters for protesters, and in general, the way that the White House account has been doing this like own the libs, like mimetic nationalism that the past few weeks has been has been really upsetting. And this has continued around this issue, and I think it is worth focusing on this as like a specific escalation because you had people like mamad U Tall, who I think Cornell tried to revoke their student visa and then he's in some way negotiated back into that to stay on.
The interim provost John Ceciliano eventually ruled in Tall's favor so he did not end up getting deported last year. And now this new development in relation to the Columbia
protests is a significant escalation. Yeah, because not only is this not just like the university revoking n F one, which they do have the you know, authority to, this is like coming directly from the Trump administration where they're they're going after specific students without the involvement of the university and students who maybe legal permanent residents.
Yeah.
Garrison found a fact sheet on white House dot gov where Trump is quoted as saying, quote to all resident aliens who joined in the pro Jahadest protests, we put you on notice. Come twenty twenty five, we will find you and we will deport you.
And that would seem to include the legal permanent residence. Yes, yeah, right, like resident alien is attacked status. But again, like, I think it's quite possible that the vagueness in the language is deliberate, not necessarily from Trump, but there are other people within the Trump cabinet who might seek to use that vagueness for things like this, right, like who might see that as a benefit.
Yeah. Well, and you've seen that with other things, like with like with Rubio's State Department directives on trans people right now, where they keep the language intentionally vague. They leave the enforcement up to like individual actors, and then they can eventually like figure out the logistics like in court once people be like oh no, this is illegal. Yeah, so like, yeah, it is vague because they want to
test the actual like full authority of their power. But I think the specific fact sheet which is like a sister article towards this executive order says like James was saying, to all the resident aliens who joined in the pro gihatist protests, we put you on notice. Come twenty twenty five, we will find you and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses which have been infested with radicalism
like never before. So there you have him saying both resident aliens, which we can infer probably refers to Green cardholders, as well as student visas. So these are two separate things that he has specifically named as going after. And now you see more direction from Rubio after this arrest
that happened on Monday. You see more direction from Rubio and the State Department in like specifically naming legal permanent residents as targets for removal and targets for ice actions, which is not something that is extremely common.
Yeah. Where I've seen it before is like in cases of material support for terrorism, which but that has quite a high bar of proof, right, that's like a listed organization proving a material ie financial or physical support, right, like in kind donations like I've written about a guy who is providing material aid to the Islamic state called Siki Romy's Hodge sending stuff from bass pro actually like
thermal scopes and hunting scopes and things like that. But that has a much higher bar than this, which we will see, you know, because we have a legal permanent resident here and they're seeking to revoke that. I imagine we will see a court case and we will see exactly the justification for revoking his green card in that court case.
That will be some time in the future.
Let's go on a quick break and we will come back to discuss some more of the details on what Mark Rubio is actually saying and where this could all end up. Okay, we are back. I would like to talk about specifically some of the rhetoric that Rubio has been using since this arrest and a little bit of
what he was saying before. Like we were saying before the break, some of this kind of vague language can kind of be used to their advantage, and this is certainly like riffing off of very vague language that Trump would use on the campaign trail right where he would talk about wanting to jail or deport protesters like in general, regardless if they're student visa holders, green card holders, or
just US citizens. Right, Like, Trump has made statements about wanting to do all of that, and campaigns like off the cuff statements and actual like government policy are two different things, and right now like they're trying to figure out where the line between that is, like how much of this rhetoric can be turned into government policy. And we mentioned like the fact sheet from the executive order that I believe was signed in January, which is you know,
to quote unquote combat anti Semitism. And then like last week, so before this arrest happened, we had a post from the Secretary Mark Rubio Twitter account official quote, those who support designated terrorist organizations including hamas threaten our national security. The United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorists. Violators of US law, including international students, face
visa denial or revocation and deportation unquote. So that one specifically focuses, I would say, pretty firmly on people who have student visas. Right, he names like visitors, And then after the arrest happened, he posted a different statement on his own personal account, quote, we will be revoking the visas and or green cards of HAMAS supporters in America so that they can be deported unquote, sharing an ap article.
And then the Homeland Security dhs gov account posted on March nine, twenty twenty five, and supported President Trump's executive orders prohibiting anti Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student. Khalil led activities aligned to HAMAS, a designated terrorist organization ICE in the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump's executive orders
and protecting US national security unquote. And there's now been a flurry of posts from both the White House account and DTESS accounts basically posting like a picture of this person saying that he's aligned with HAMAS in celebration, almost like styled after a wanted poster, but instead of just reads like arrested, and that is like the that's the rhetoric that like they're using right now on their official accounts, something that like James I think noted, it's it's important
to like think about if ICE was just freestyling this action, or if there was a directive beforehand to go after green cards specifically, right, And it seems like at least for the people like doing the raid, they did not care nor did they like. No, they weren't informed. They just were told to go after this person. Yeah, from someone higher up, right, and that that very well could be Rubio. I mean a lot of DHS is being ran by Steven Miller right now. A lot of this feels very Miller esque.
Yeah, we got an update as of the time of recording. I've just discovered that Mahud Khalil's lawyers filed a lawsuit challenging gives detention, and a judge in New York City, federal judge obviously or that Khalil shouldn't be deported while that court then considered his case.
Yes, I was going to bring that up so that also, like.
His case will be considered in New York City, which is probably good for him as opposed to a more conservative jurisdiction elsewhere.
Right, Totally like this happening in Texas, Like in all of those districts where Elon Musk is trying to set up his corporations, because there's friendly judges, this will be handled quite differently.
Right, Yeah, this is something migrance I speak to are at least aware of sometimes that they don't want to enter into Texas because the fifth it is seen as less favorable to them, they'd say, the ninth circuit where they would be advanted in California. I'm sort of surprised if it is a Miller joint that it isn't someone like U. T.
Austin or somewhere like that.
Now they're going directly after this individual in part because he's somebody that a lot of folks who might otherwise be like up in arms about a move like this, would say because of some of his connections and some of the things he said in the past. Well he's
you know, supported groups that are really bad. Like I think they're really trying to find the first case is they want someone that they can have a lot of like liberals off from being too scared to support because he said some things that like they don't want to have attached to them. Like that's that's how they're and they're going to keep pushing that further and further each time.
You find some folks who you can scare off a lot of maybe what you might call like their otherwise natural support base because you can point out this thing or that thing they did that was that was not great acou types like when I'm not I'm not insulting
or trying to say bad things about this guy. I'm just saying, like, that's that's the tactic here, right, to try to paint this guy as like, well, this guy did this, bat you do really want to support that, which is why you have to take an incredibly firm stance that no, the government doesn't get to do this, the state department doesn't get to do this.
Yeah, regardless of of any things that this person may have.
Said, that First Amendment is for everyone.
I don't care what he said, you know, so, Like, it's also worth noting that Columbia, specifically the Intercept is reported on this that there is a WhatsApp group called Columbia Alumnife Israel, and they have been explicitly trying to identify the students and to call for like prosecution and
I guess persecution of these students. Like and I think the Columbia encampment was particularly objectionable to a lot of people, and that was kind of the one that got a lot of the national focus in the reporting, right, So it's understandable that that's where they went for this.
Yeah, it's it's high visibility. And I think it's also very likely that they're just looking to have a test case for this to see if they can create legal precedent for removing people's green cards for you know, anti genocide protests, right, And the specific details of that will become more and more or less important based on like the results of the case, as long as they can create that president right and specifically like the president for
revoking a green card, something that's pretty substantial. Yeah, they want something that's like, you know, in their mind, like the most favorable towards their outcome. So I mean that's part of what they're trying to do with this specific case. And like it is, it is very much in line with with Trump's campaign rhetoric and versions of what Trump
has said before. And now you're seeing someone like Rubio, someone who's you know a little bit more policy minded, taking taking steps towards this outcome.
Yeah, which I think is you know, like the other thing they didn't get to do, I guess is that they weren't able to like deport the guy at hyper speed, which they have been joining with some people. Yeah, he was detained in New York and then moved to Louisiana. People were very upset this, rightly, because it's removing him from easy access to his lawyer and to his family and to his eight month pregnant wife. Right that's all things that shouldn't be done. It's also something that a
Biden administration did routinely. We have other episodes on this actually, especially in San Diego, where we have some funding that allows people who are detained access to legal assistance. It has been very common for those migrants to be then moved to Texas. I've seen it with migrants I've met at the border, and I've looked for them in the ICE Immigrant Detention locator and they've been moved to Texas. It's not uncommon at all. So it's bad that it happened.
It was bad that it happened under Biden. It's still bad that it's happening now. We shouldn't have let it happen then, we shouldn't support it when it happens now.
I think before we go and break again, I do want to kind of close this section by talking about like they don't necessarily need an executive order specifically allowing Trump to do this, or like Trump doesn't need to make an executive order like explicitly for this based on immigration deportation law, Like there will be an argument made in like in court that that they have justification for
this action already. This is something that I've already been through when I immigrated to the country and like did like my citizenship interview. Right, like you, if you have discussed in the past, you know, something that can be construed as support for a terrorist organization that does disqualify you from US citizenship and right, So there's gonna be a lot of arguments like around like specifically these terrorism
statutes that will make someone like this a subject for removal. Yeah, and like that that's going to be like the angle in which they they go about this, And I think that's like worth keeping in mind.
I also think it's worth because and I don't want to make this because a lot of people online have this shouldn't be our immediate primary concern. Our immediately primary concern should be mood and the other people like him who are in situations like be targeted. But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that, like if they get away with this at some point that we'll start saying like look, at least for Palestine government description in support
for any group that the government considers a terrorist. It doesn't matter if you were born here as a citizen. You know, we can start like that is a potential in state of this, which is again not should not be on your front burner. It should be the people being targeted right now. But also an awareness of like this is part of why you have to draw such
a hard line. Like if if the situation was reversed and this where a democratic administration coming after an anti vaccine student activist who is a permanent legal resident, it would be wrong for them to disappear them, right, Like that has to be like where the line is drawn.
Yeah, yeah, the state should not have this ability, Like we should not let them get away with this, and we should put as much support and legal support into preventing this from happening. I really can't say which way this will go, Like immigration law is the one of the most like headache conducing things I've ever had to go through in my entire life.
Oh, Like, he will be spending a lot of money on immigration lawyers.
Now, yeah, also be really clear, I'm not equating support for Palestine to being anti vax I'm just saying, like, you know, if this was like a shitty guy, right, it would still be wrong.
People. It was something that we like to like laugh at for getting measles in Texas, disappearing people bare.
If you thought Russia was doing anti fascism in Ukraine, it would still be important, right, right, you know, to do this, And should we take a break and come back and discuss some more, Yes, yes, I wanted to give a little bit of background here some other stuff that I've been looking into. So in the fifth of February,
Attorney General Pam Bondai issued a series of memos. One of these was establishing a quote October seventh task for so I'm going to quote from it here to prioritize seeking justice for victims of October seventh, twenty twenty three terrorist attack in Israel, addressing the ongoing threat post by Hamas and its affiliates, and combating anti s submitting acts of terrorism, and civil rights violations in the homeland. It
then lifts several action items for the FBI. Right among them is investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism, anti Semitic civil rights violations, and other federal crimes committed by her MASS supporters in the United States, including on college campuses. The final point is quote supporting efforts by the Israeli government Department of Defense and Department of Treasury to pursue non criminal responses to the October seventh attack and other
terrorist activities by her MASS. There's a couple of things that are obviously non criminal responses. Could include deportation, right like if the person that is not being accused of a crime but nonethless having their visa evoked. Also that the idea of cooperating with a foreign government, a government which is currently committing a genocide, potentially against US citizens or US residents, is quite concerning. It's especially concerning when we talk about that Trump executive.
Order that we've already discussed. Right.
One of the parts of that Trump executive order that I noticed that I haven't seen any reporting on was the quote infantry and analysis of all the Title six complaints sort of ministrative actions including in K through twelve education related to anti Semitism pending or resolved after October seventh, twenty twenty three.
Can you explain what Title six is?
Yeah?
I can in Garrison, and I would love to so. Title six is part of the Civil Rights Actor of nineteen sixty four. Right iprohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin DH. Yes, it applies to federally funded programs, activities, or institutions which receive federal funding. Right which will cover almost every institution of education in this country, apart from some religious private schools. I guess maybe they still get
some federal funding. There have been a number of Title six cases filed for anti Semitic discrimination and anti Palastinio or anti Arab or Islamophobic discrimination since October seven to twenty twenty three. The ones filed for Islamophobic discriminate don't seem to be covered by this, but the other ones do. The Biden administration kind of rushed to finish up and resolve some of these in the last few weeks of his tenure, and normally the results were pretty ineffectual. It
was like some more trainings, the review of policies. Anyone who's who's been an educator at one of these institutions will have already been very familiar with the sort of anti discrimination training video that you have to watch, and they were suggesting that you watch more of those videos. I'm not really convinced that that is the way we deal with hatred, but that's why they recommended the Emory one.
I thought was interesting because they told Emory that it had to commit to a quote equitable handling of protests after its campus police were so violent towards anti genocide protesters. A lot of the other cases are still pending, but it seems like the Trump administration is going to go back and review all of them anyway. It does seem like whether it's spread organically or whether it's some kind
of campaign to file Title six complaints. A lot of Title six complaints were filed after October seventh, and during this time when we saw like campus protests, when we saw support by some faculty for those campus protests, right and we saw some faculty who may or may not have supported a protest but felt very strongly about the right of students to have freedom of speech on campus. And I'm sure they will have been kind of wrapped
up in this big drag net too. That this potentially raises the specter of like at least career threatening and again, lots of faculty are not US citizens, right. They might be permanent residents, they might be married to citizens, they might be here on a visa. There are a number of different immigration status is that they could have that are not US citizen that they could potentially lose.
So what is Trump trying to do about these cases which could be pending or have already been resolved.
Yeah, Well, what they said is they want to familiarize institutions with the grounds for inadmissibility so that that's not allowing someone to enter the United States, right, and read out the section of the United States Code action of the United States Code quote so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds, and for ensuring that such report about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law,
to investigations and comma, if warranted, COMMA actions to remove such aliens. So it's in there, right, Like this is in Trump's late January executive order. Yeah, this is the legal argument that they're making there, and they're asking universities to do some of that legwork for them. It seems I imagine that this is the same section of the United States Code that we'll see used with reference to Kalil, but it refers to like excludable or inadmissible aliens, which
is people coming into the country. But I guess they could make an argument that like he disguised his inadmissible status or became inadmissible.
Sure. I mean there's these two sections, right, There's this one that revolves around who can be like admitted, who can be accepted. That one section, which is a big section one two, two seven, sub section A four A dash C, which is the sections on deportation as relating to like supporting quote unquote terrorist activities. So I think they will try to use these both like in conjunction. And I think it's also important to noteubt here the use of the word like aliens as opposed to the
word that like Rubio was using previously, which is like visitors. Right, Like visitors, I would say, probably applies more to like student visa holders, yeah, non residents versus aliens. Aliens can be anyone, right, like aliens can be can be visa holders, can be Green card holders, right. And so at least in like the official wording here, the use of the word I think aliens is important as opposed to like
Rubio's like you know posts on x dot com. Yeah, which now become official policy because we're in the hell world.
Yep.
That refers to like just like you know, visitors to this country.
Yeah, the right has used aliens for a long time, right, because it differentiates them from people.
Yeah, it's like it's very basic like dehumanization like.
This, yeah, right, in this case, it's I think it's important. It's pivotal, so like we have a sense of what will happen there. And maybe I could just finish up by saying if you are faculty or a student, if you're encountering this, you can reach out to us using our encrypted email. So if you'd like to reach out to us, it's cool Zone tips at proton dot me.
It's only encrypted if it's encrypted from the sender as well as a recipient, so that would mean using a Proton or other encrypted email to reach out rather than using an unencrypted email.
If you'd like to.
Reach out again, Cools on tips at proton dot me. Obviously this is something we're going to continue taking an interest in, and obviously it's something that we can't report the entirety of now because we're still waiting on the court case, but we are very interested in learning more about it, so please feel free to reach out.
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.
Well, and it's something that Trump is also saying. Yeah, they will be taking a continue you'd interest in. He is promising that this is the first arrest of quote unquote many to come. So as they could do to pocus on this, we will as well. James, did you have anything else you wanted to say, like re lawyers.
Yes, So, as I mentioned before, right, people under by administration have been moved away from their lawyers.
This is very common.
It seems that now people are being moved away from their lawyers and having teleconference request denied. I let's say, Garrison, you're a lawyer and you have a client attained to San Diego. They moved to Texas, and now you can't teleconference in for a ten minute hearing, so you would have to fly right for that ten minute here. Yeah, which is going to make it impossible both in time
terms of financial terms. What I'm understanding, I'm still digging into this a little bit more, but that's what I'm hearing. So this is going to be an ongoing thing. I guess if you're an immigration lawyer one of the places people are being sent to, like Texas, you can help. But you probably already know that, and you're probably already doing that, and you're probably already very very overworked.
Do you work asylum?
So yeah, I think now is the time for groupsie the ACLU to step up or shut up, and we'll see.
Well, in the ACOU has come out against Mahmood's arrest.
Okay, good.
The ADL, obviously totally foreign shocked to the ADL, an organization formed to help avoid another Holocaust, does not see any potential danger in a state redefining citizensship in order to disappear its political enemies. So we love the ADL here, folks. But the ACLU did, I mean, we'll see if they do anything, but they did, like make a statement.
Yeah, they've been very good. I should say. The ACLU has been pursuing a lot of litigation. It's Trump administration.
This is the sort of thing they're pretty consistently anti. Yes, yeah, especially at a national level. They've been very good at this, and so yeah, you know, shout out to them.
I guess, I.
Don't know, we don't need to shout it out. It's their job. Yeah, they get millions of like this is literally why why you're there?
Do a good job or else you'd better.
Do something else too, like yeah, you better show up.
Yeah, and no, don't donate to the ad L.
I guess if you were thinking of doing that after listening to this podcast.
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