Pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanding the release of the student graduate from Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, are held outside his hearing on the immigration court in Newark, NJ, Friday, March 28, 2025.
Ted Shaffrey / AP
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Ted Shaffrey / AP
Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained in early March by US immigration officials, faces a possible deportation for the actions preparing the government goes against US foreign interests.
Khalil, a student graduated from Columbia University, holds a green card, married to an American citizen. To justify its expulsion, the government invokes an obscure law which played a major role in the formation of American immigration during the Cold War: the McCarran-Walter Act, or the 1952 immigration nationality Act.
Since last year, some pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been accused of anti-Semitism and support for terrorist organizations. The demonstrators deny this, arguing that criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and in American support should not be assimilated to anti -Semitism.
The Trump administration has promised a repression.
“We know that there are more students in Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in a pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it,” said President Trump on his social networks last month. “We will find, understand and expel these terrorist sympathizers from our country – never to come back.”
What does the law say?
The case of Mahmoud Khalil raised the issue of rights to freedom of expression for immigrants. The Trump administration argues that as regards non-citizens, there are limits to freedom of expression. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators, they say, support terrorism.
“It is a privilege to have a visa to live and study in the United States of America”, Homeland Security dry. Kristi Noem posted on X last month. “When you defend violence and terrorism, this privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country.”
The first amendment to the Constitution does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens, and the Supreme Court The past has reigned that the first amendment applies to non-citizens.
But the federal government has almost a total power over immigration, deciding that comes and remains in the United States, and in the past this decision as a function of whether or not that an ideology affects American foreign policy. In particular, in the 1950s, during the Cold War, the Immigration and Nationality Act or the McCarran-Walter law strongly monitored immigrants for communist ideology.
Adopted in 1952, the law stipulates that the United States government can expel “a foreigner whose presence or activities in the United States The Secretary of State has a reasonable reason to believe would potentially have the consequences of unfavorable foreign policy for the United States”.
It was specially designed to hold, expel and dam from the entrance visas to the Communists. According to the US State Department, the member of the Pennsylvania Congress, Francis McCarren, “expressed his concerns that the United States can face communist infiltration by immigration and that unresard foreigners can threaten the foundations of American life”.
The Trump administration now recalls this policy.
In a memo obtained by the Associated Press, in order to determine the detention and expulsion of Mahmoud Khalil, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote: “I determined that the activities and the presence of these foreigners would have potentially serious early consequences.” The memo repeatedly cites the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The McCarren-Walter or Immigration and Nationality Act: a legendary past
But since its creation, the law has had large-scale consequences beyond ideology.
“You have to return to ugly eras in American history to find precedents for what we see now,” said Professor Michael Kagan of the School of Law at the University of Nevada.
The specialists of lawyers and historians claim that the act has also cemented the racial and ethnic immigration quotas which were already part of the American system.
“McCarran, in particular, was a virulent anti -Semitic. He thought in a way that the Jews and the Communists were riding,” said Kagan.
In fact, the impact of the act on Jewish immigration was serious, promoting the west and northern Europeans. According to Muzaffar Chishti and Julia Gelatt at Migration Policy Institute“He closed the door to almost all the new Asian immigration and excluded most European Jews and other refugees fleeing fascism and holocaust horrors in Europe.”
Kagan says that if these actions may resemble ancient history for most Americans, there are points in common with what is happening today.
“We don’t like your political convictions and what you have expressed. So we’re going to expel the country,” said Kagan.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he has revoked more than 300 visas. “We have given you a visa to come and study and graduate, not to become a social activist who tears our university campus. We have given you a visa and you decide to do so – we will remove it,” said Rubio during a recent press conference.
The defenders of freedom of expression fear that this establish a dangerous precedent who could possibly be turned on American citizens with dissident opinions – a bit like red fear in the 1950s.
A decision concerning Mahmoud Khalil is expected soon.
