Israel, Palestine, Due Process and Habeas Corpus

The ICE recent detention, or “arrest,” of former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil who helped lead demonstrations related to the Israel-Gaza war is extremely alarming. (ICE is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.)

Full details of just what Khalil is alleged to have done that was illegal – not merely offensive – will come out later. But the mere act of protesting a war, or supporting one side or the other in the conflict, or ignoring the proximate cause of the Israel-Gaza war (i.e., the October 7 massacre), cannot be a justification for any sort of legal action against the man. If Khalil is being targeted by the government for legal reasons, then we must know just what laws he’s alleged to have broken. Otherwise, it would seem to be Columbia University that should be held accountable for failing to protect a religious minority, in this case, the Jewish students. I’m aware that Columbia now stands to lose up to $400 million in government-funded grants for its early failures to protect Jewish students, but even here we should know just which grants we’re talking about and how are they related to Columbia’s failures to protect those students, and if it’s even legal to do so.

Government steps to revoke Khalil’s status in the country, if valid, should be fully transparent. There may be millions of people in the county who have outstayed their visas, if that’s what the charge is, and I don’t have much use for singling out one for his political views, if that is what the government is doing.

Put simply, if Khalil is charged with a crime then due process must be followed. If he remains in detention for any length of time, then his lawyer will demand a writ of habeas corpus to ensure a judge gets to rule on the matter. Abraham Lincoln abrogated habeas corpus during the Civil War (1861-65) and that was not a good thing then; there would be zero justification for doing it today. I don’t know that Donald Trump is micromanaging ICE, but they cannot proactively do the man’s bidding.

Trump’s loyalty is to the Constitution, as is ICE’s, as is any law enforcement agency’s.

Some will say ICE is enforcing administrative law, somewhat like the IRS, which enforces tax laws. I don’t know enough about the distinction, but it doesn’t matter here. Due process must be followed, and everything must be transparent.

Some of the actions of pro-Gaza and/or pro-Hamas demonstrators were highly offensive to me, and I would deem some of it anti-Semitic. But not all, and political views should not automatically be conflated with religious or ethnic hate. If Jewish students were physically assaulted, then that would be a criminal matter – did Khalil do that? He’s not guilty until proven innocent. Is there probable cause, though? Let’s hear what it is – again, full transparency is required. Those of you who have followed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s inadvertent caricatures of the law may remember that he released a bunch of apparent Columbia University lawbreakers, claiming they could not be identified even though they were arrested in the act of allegedly breaking the law, i.e., they were always identifiable. But look where all this leads us – Alvin Bragg refusing to enforce the law for political reasons, and Donald Trump and his minions abusing the law for political reasons.