The US assault on free speech is not going to end with Mahmoud Khalil

This is about people who don't have the right to be in the United States to begin with

the secretar

I'm coming with you, don't worry,

In the video filmed by his wife Noor Adballa, Khalil can be heard saying

We can deny you that visa,

the U.S. top diplomat argued

If you actually end up doing that once you're in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it.

He added

They are right to be worried. Some of our faculty members and students who have covered the protests over the Gaza war have been the object of smear campaigns and targeted on the same sites that were used to bring Khalil to the attention of Homeland Security. President Trump has warned that the effort to deport Khalil is just the first of many,

the university added

Karoline Leavittwhite House press secretary

I have those fliers on my desk, they were provided to me by the Department of Homeland Security,

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed

Mahmoud was moved across multiple state lines and subsequently transferred to a remote prison in Louisiana hours after filing his habeas petition, an intentional and retaliatory act and an attempt to interfere with the jurisdiction of the New York court.”

Samah Sisa, a staff attorney at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, also said at a press conference on Friday

The actions we’ve outlined above jeopardize these principles and therefore the viability of our democracy. All who believe in these freedoms should steadfastly oppose the intimidation, harassment, and detention of individuals on the basis of their speech or their journalism,

the uni faculty signed off

All of this talk of flyers is just nonsense, there is no truth to it whatsoever.”

Meanwhile, Ramzi Kassem, the director of CLEAR, a group representing the Columbia graduate and a permanent resident of the US, slammed the narrative, saying

Kamala Harrisvice President

The use of deportation to suppress foreign critics runs parallel to an aggressive campaign to use libel laws in novel — even outlandish ways — to silence or intimidate the independent press,

noted Columbia, while listing other examples of how media was either favourably speaking about Trump or was vulnerable to being sued, like CBS faced the legal wrath for an interview with Kamala Harris

Meanwhile, the Trump administration insists on hand-picking the journalists who will be permitted to cover the White House and Pentagon, and it has banned the Associated Press from press briefings because the AP is following its own style book and refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America,

the leading university said

To frontload [immigrants] as the primary threat to Jewish security is not only morally irresponsible, but dangerous for the Jewish people and for American society,

the group said in a letter signed by hundreds of rabbis

My committed Jewish faculty colleagues and I have warned that the false characterisation of [Columbia University] as a hotbed of antisemitism would be used as an alibi for what’s actually at stake for the Republican establishment and now the Trump administration: strict control of speech, of protest, and of higher education at large,

she said

Anti-Palestinian organisations were spreading false claims about my husband that were simply not based in reality. They were making threats against Mahmoud and he was so concerned about his safety that he emailed Columbia University on March 7,

she said

There’s an attack on people’s rights with one hand and on their livelihoods with the other,

he said

Of course we are vulnerable. We have a gigantic endowment but we would burn through that endowment in no time flat if federal funds and tuition funds were taken away,

he said

It’s disappointing. There’s obviously a great deal of pressure on them. It’s time to stand up and defend the values of American education, intellectual life, freedom of expression, and not least, the freedom of students and faculty not to be arrested by immigration police,

he said

What we are seeing from the Trump administration, as we’ve been seeing since the inauguration in January, is an attempt to show power and to say that anyone who disagrees with this administration, or who publicly speaks out against this administration, could be targeted,

she said

Karoline Leavittwhite House press secretary

This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans."

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, earlier this week

I understand the immense stress our community is under. Despite the unprecedented challenges, Columbia University will remain a place where the pursuit of knowledge is cherished and fiercely protected, where the rule of law and due process is respected and never taken for granted, and where all members of our community are valued and able to thrive. These are the principles we uphold and that guide us every day."

Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong, in a Thursday press release