A society that jails peaceful students for protesting or writing essays signals a chilling collapse of freedom. Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian Columbia University graduate, was arrested by ICE in March 2025 for leading pro-Palestinian protests, despite holding a green card. Transferred to a Louisiana detention center, he faces deportation for vague “foreign policy risks,” sparking outrage over free speech suppression. Similarly, Yunseo Chung, another Columbia student, had her green card revoked and was detained for participating in anti-war demonstrations, highlighting a pattern of targeting activists. At UCLA, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown, faced detention after DHS accused him of Hamas ties for his protest involvement, with no clear evidence. These cases reveal a democracy fraying, where dissent invites punishment. Will silence become complicity?
First They Came for the Grad Students
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Finally, we git to see the other side of the Kent State story.
As with a lot of the pretend-left’s behavior, this is a case of what the French would call “being et up with a dumbass.”
The holder of a green card is not a citizen. What does that mean? It means that if you break a law, any law — spit on the sidewalk, litter, jaywalk, hunt and kill teenagers for sport — you are subject to arrest, loss of your green card, and can be deported. For a green card holder to “participate” in a protest — especially a pointless exercise like Columbia grads (and other privileged college students) getting upset about something — is the dumbass move of a dumbass who thinks all the cops are the dumbasses. The cops might be dumbasses, but they are ORGANIZED dumbasses. They’ve had a very long time to iron out the bugs and think it all through. And in that regard, they are 100 times better at getting their goals than the pretend left.
Almost certainly, the cops had all the faces of the protesters scanned and identified within minutes. Arresting a citizen for protesting is make-busy work. It’s a good way to get them into the system and identify who’ll be trouble later on, but the cops do it mainly because it keeps them looking busy. But a green card holder? The cops love it when ardency meets stupidity. Because that’s where the real job satisfaction is.
For a meaningless gesture, this guy is now in a cell somewhere, missed the birth of his child, and probably will never be allowed back in to the United States. I hope his wife is stocking up on cardboard boxes for when she has to move.
“These cases reveal a democracy fraying, where dissent invites punishment. Will silence become complicity?” This is standard operating procedure and has been for a very long time. Dissent has always invited punishment.
Alex, usually I appreciate what you have to say, but not this time. Sneering at people who take the time and energy to protest the Palestinian genocide as “the pretend left” only serves the interests of the USraeli government. Your claim that mere green card holders “should know better” than to express their opinions or participate in peaceful, legal protests against abhorrent government policy is likewise risible or would be if the matter at hand weren’t so serious. In times like these, we need to be supporting each other as much as possible, not sniping at each other at the slightest excuse.
same. do they realize whose site they’re even on? ted’s whole thing is that we should be in the streets. maybe their problem is that the protesters weren’t violent enough? i’m sure ted would agree with that at least.
brother martin and pork (et al…),
I’m not “sneering at the people who take the time and energy to protest the Palestinian genocide.” I’m sneering at the people who are spuriously expending their time and energy in protests that will accomplish nothing. Those are the people I am classifying as the pretend-left because, despite their good intentions and their apparently genuine outrage, they are getting nothing done. And, as in the case discussed, at a very high cost. “Sell low, buy high,” is not a sound business policy, nor is it good tactics in politics.
These “protests” are, if anything, weakening the likelihood of the desired outcome because they are normalizing “peaceful protest” as the One True Way. And it is not. Peaceful protest allowed Ronald Reagan’s gang of criminals to wipe their backsides on the Constitution. It kept Dick Cheney out of The Hague. It allowed a 20-year quagmire in the Middle East to go on and on, year after year, while numerous human rights violations were committed (Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the various places and events that never got to the news cycle).
So what can people do? I don’t know that I know what the successful strategy is. Perhaps selective boycotts. Perhaps getting all the tragic hipsters who march with signs to start showing up at politicians’ offices and taking up the time of staffers. Perhaps reading up on the history of propaganda campaigns, dirty tricks, etc. (Does Columbia offer a course in practical political sabotage?) But the first step has got to be a reassessment of tactics.
“So what can people do? I don’t know that I know what the successful strategy is. ” OK, we’re on the same page. The conclusions I have come to are these: 1) Perhaps everyone doing whatever it is they can do, most especially withdrawing our financial support of the corporate world to whatever extent we can, will stop the headlong plunge and turn things around. Or, perhaps, there is too much momentum in the plunge, and we need to do whatever we can to prepare for impact and whatever happens afterwards–i.e., the system will break itself. That will be messy and tragic, but at this point it looks to me like the most likely outcome.
It occurs to me that people in the USSR in the late 80s probably felt similarly. The system clear wasn’t working, and clearly couldn’t be challenged. And then……
First they came for the Green card holders … then they came for NIH grant holders. tinyurl.com/nc6zj9xu
I don’t see that using up politicians’ staff time will accomplish much. Boycotts could be as powerful as Trump’s tariff machinations, but whom do we boycott? I fear that the end result will simply be shifts in where we buy stuff; for example, progressives shop at Target and conservatives shop at Walmart.
We still are in a country where politicians need voters, so I think the focus has to be on convincing our fellow voters. This can be on issues, but it also has to do with the cult of personality. We need candidates with rizz, both nationally and locally. With any luck, these peaceful protests will help us to identify sensible candidates who can win.
Tying up staffers? One of the most effective ways possible of getting what you want. “Here comes _____. God help us. What does he want this time? Do you know how much time he eats up? And we can’t turn him away. That’s political suicide. You can’t tell a constituent to bugger off to Kingdom Come. And then, almost always, about 15 minutes after he leaves, in comes someone else with usually the exact same complaint. And then we have to deal with them too. And I’d like to find out who these sickos are who send in the physical letters. I’m the one who has to open each one, read it, summarize it, make sure a response goes out, and check that response with the appropriate departments. I barely have time to shmooze or play solitaire on my computer.”
Government functions on the primary design concept that almost everyone doesn’t use almost everything. Sure, most people have a driver license. Very few have a beautician’s license. Town halls are usually held in rooms with lots of seats and, maybe, 12 people in the audience. If 400 showed up? They’d be screwed. The room’s only fire-rated for 200. They’d literally have to find a new room. And if everyone came with a question or comment? They’d never get out of there.