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The Guardian / Maanvi Singh: Why Trump's brutal crackdown on free speech is unprecedented in the US
The Guardian / Maanvi Singh - Why Trump’s brutal crackdown on free speech is unprecedented in the US
Experts says rounding up protesters and taking control from universities goes beyond McCarthy’s witch-hunts
Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that he would crack down against pro-Palestinian student protesters.
Over the past few weeks, he has forcefully followed through.
His administration has directed investigators at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), who would typically target human traffickers and drug smugglers, to track down students who may have shown sympathy for the Palestinian cause in social media posts. His secretary of state has deployed an obscure statute to detain PhD candidates and researchers. Openly flouting bedrock principles of free speech in the US, his administration has thrown the weight of its executive power into crushing political dissent.
First, immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia student and permanent resident who led pro-Palestinian protests. The secretary of state personally signed off on his arrest by invoking an obscure provision of the law that allows him to deport foreign nationals deemed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” – a vague formulation that the government has claimed provides it extraordinary leeway to pursue opinions it doesn’t like.
Khalil was just the first. This month, immigration officials have made a string of arrests with similarly specious justifications from the government. And it hasn’t always been clear why the government has targeted specific students.
/snip
Experts says rounding up protesters and taking control from universities goes beyond McCarthy’s witch-hunts
Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that he would crack down against pro-Palestinian student protesters.
Over the past few weeks, he has forcefully followed through.
His administration has directed investigators at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), who would typically target human traffickers and drug smugglers, to track down students who may have shown sympathy for the Palestinian cause in social media posts. His secretary of state has deployed an obscure statute to detain PhD candidates and researchers. Openly flouting bedrock principles of free speech in the US, his administration has thrown the weight of its executive power into crushing political dissent.
First, immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia student and permanent resident who led pro-Palestinian protests. The secretary of state personally signed off on his arrest by invoking an obscure provision of the law that allows him to deport foreign nationals deemed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” – a vague formulation that the government has claimed provides it extraordinary leeway to pursue opinions it doesn’t like.
Khalil was just the first. This month, immigration officials have made a string of arrests with similarly specious justifications from the government. And it hasn’t always been clear why the government has targeted specific students.
/snip