When speaking up for Palestine becomes a crime

As a Palestinian, I learned very young that our very existence was a form of protest. Every family gathering that turned into a political discussion and every celebration existed in defiance of forces that would rather see us disappear. This is why the detention of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil strikes at the core of my being—I recognize in his abduction the same suffocating tactics used to silence Palestinians for generations, now deployed on American soil against those who dare speak our name.

Khalil’s detention by ICE agents on March 8, marks a watershed moment in American democracy. As his pregnant wife watched helplessly, government agents took away a legal permanent resident whose only “crime” was serving as a negotiator in campus protests calling for university divestment from companies profiting from Israel’s Genocide on Gaza.

Let us be clear: Mahmoud Khalil is a political prisoner—detained not for any recognizable crime, but for criticizing Israel. There is no law against calling for the end of genocide, nor should there be in a constitutional democracy. Yet the Trump administration has effectively created such a crime, linking legitimate criticism of a colonial state to “antisemitism,” by abducting and detaining a green card holder solely for his political expression.

After Khalil’s detention, the official White House Instagram account published an image of him with the words “Shalom Mahmoud” plastered across it—a chilling taunt that reveals the administration’s contempt for due process and basic human dignity. His temporary disappearance into the ICE detention system—his lawyers couldn’t locate him for over 24 hours—mirrors the tactics of authoritarian regimes worldwide.

What makes this moment particularly dangerous is that it didn’t begin with Trump. It was precisely the Biden-Harris administration’s demonization of student protesters as antisemitic that laid the groundwork for Trump’s assault on Columbia and other universities. In January 2025, a far-right pro-Israel group submitted a list of students with visas to the Trump administration, urging their deportation for pro-Palestine advocacy. Within days, the administration issued an executive order threatening visa revocation for protesters. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the agenda explicit, writing: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

Across American universities, suppression has manifested in student expulsions, organizations being disbanded, and unprecedented surveillance: nine universities have forcibly shut down their Students for Justice in Palestine chapters; Columbia University expelled three students; and UCLA reportedly spent $12 million to surveil and challenge student protesters. This institutional violence mirrors the academic purges of the McCarthy era, when professors were blacklisted for ideological nonconformity.

There are countless reasons why the crusade against the Palestine movement is both morally reprehensible and democratically dangerous. At its core, Palestine stands as a righteous cause because it represents a people’s fundamental struggle for self-determination, equality, and freedom from occupation. The systematic suppression of those who advocate for these rights tramples not just abstract principles, but fundamental liberties of humanity. But Khalil’s detention shows another key reason: that the suppression of the Palestine movement is a perfect illustration of emerging fascist politics being woven into the U.S. social fabric. 

For the past year-and-a-half, universities, politicians of all stripes and at every level of government, key parts of the media, corporate America, and a whole host of other institutions have happily moved heaven and earth to annihilate the Palestine movement, to conflate its activists as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, and generally to use every authoritarian trick in the book to ensure that, once it’s destroyed, it won’t come back. This is not only wrong on its face; like all partnerships with fascism, it also opens the door to a broader crackdown on civil society and civil rights.

This effort won’t stop with Palestine activists. The government and elite institutions are trying to create a new legal and political reality in which they can just sweep away anyone who challenges their ideology or their mission. When executive agencies have the power to revoke legal status, deport, and temporarily disappear people like Khalil, it sets a dangerous precedent that signals anyone holding contrary political opinions could be next. Organizations like the ADL, which issued a statement backing Khalil’s detention, and Columbia University, which helped create the ludicrous pretext for his detention while appearing unbothered by the consequences, will have to answer for what comes next. This is not hyperbole—it is fascism being normalized under the guise of preserving “law and order” to shield a foreign country from legitimate criticism.

The mechanisms deployed against Palestine solidarity will inevitably expand to other movements challenging established power. We already see evidence in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther,” which targets organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, American Muslims for Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace under the guise of combating a “Hamas Support Network.” In November, the House of Representatives approved HR 9495, which would give it authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it accuses of “terrorist affinities”—without due process or evidence.

Khalil joins a long lineage of political prisoners detained for advocating just causes throughout American history. From Eugene Debs imprisoned for opposing World War I, to Japanese Americans interned during World War II for their heritage alone, to Civil Rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote his famous ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ while detained for peaceful protest. The Black Panthers, Puerto Rican independence advocates, anti-war protesters, and Indigenous water protectors at Standing Rock have all faced state repression when challenging American imperialism. These historical parallels remind us that the criminalization of Palestine solidarity work continues America’s practice of silencing those who question its moral authority or challenge its imperial reach—a tactic consistently deployed against movements seeking justice and liberation.

But history also teaches us something powerful: movements cannot be arrested into submission. With every detention, every suspension, and every attempt at silencing, authorities have only broadened support for the Palestinian cause. As those with the privilege to speak up for Palestine, we must not be intimidated by those in power who choose to monopolize violence. We must continue to demand a ceasefire, an end to occupation, and a free Palestine where children are not condemned to watch their parents die under bombs paid for by our schools and government.

The fight to free Khalil and maintain his legal status is not merely about preserving First Amendment rights, it is about whether we will allow our government to criminalize resistance to its complicity in human rights abuses and genocide. Unless confronted, this new era of political repression threatens to normalize a regime where challenging imperial power becomes grounds for detention or deportation. What begins with Palestine will not end there—and the time to resist is now before the suppression playbook becomes the new normal for all who dare question America’s role in global injustice.