Three days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, the White House confirmed the recent Columbia graduate hadnât been charged with a crime. Instead, Khalilâs arrest had been personally ordered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
âThe secretary of state has the right to revoke a green card or visa for individuals who are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States,â White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. Khalil, she claimed, had “organized group protests” that disrupted classes and harassed Jewish American students. On top of that, she said, he had “distributed pro-Hamas propaganda: flyers with the logo of Hamas.â
Contrary to Leavitt’s statement, Rubio canât just snap his fingers and order someoneâs deportation. But the provision of the law she cited, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), is very real. It’s an obscure McCarthy-era statute passed at the height of Cold War paranoia â meant to help root out “subversives” from every area of public life.Â