Such is the refrain of Pastor Martin Niemoller's iconic Holocaust poem, "First They Came".
Mahmoud Khalil is a name that should be on the tip of the tongues of all Americans who value the sacrosanct first amendment. If you aren't yet familiar with him, be prepared to be outraged by the time you finish reading, because this Columbia University graduate student is only the first victim of the Trump regime's evisceration of Americans' right to peaceably assembly and redress our grievances.
There will be more.
We are all Mahmoud Kahlil, or we will be in short order.
Mahmoud Khalil is a Syrian-born Palestinian activist who helped lead non-violent student protests last year at Columbia University against the Israeli genocide of Gazans. He is a legal U.S. resident with a green card and is not affiliated with any terrorist organization, like Hamas. His wife, eight-months' pregnant, is an American citizen.
By dint of his being a student negotiator for protests--which occurred on other campuses in addition to Columbia--he is the target of Columbia's new disciplinary body concentrating on harassment and discrimination complaints.
No wonder he is also now in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana--notorious for severe medical neglect, physical, and sexual abuse--after ICE agents forced their way into Khalil's apartment on March 8, without a judicial warrant, claiming his green card and student visa had been "revoked", and they were there to deport him. The only reason he hasn't been yet is due to a federal judge's order to keep Khalil in the United States while the constitutionality surrounding his arrest and detention are litigated.
om/DHSgov/status/1898908955675357314
As reported in The Nation:
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