To save the country, we must deport people like Mahmoud Khalil

The Trump administration’s latest wave of attempted deportations—centered on Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student and green card holder who openly supported Hamas and promoted terrorism—represents a civilizational tipping point.

How the United States navigates what should be an entirely uncontroversial issue will decide whether we will win or lose a battle against radicalism that has festered on our shores for decades. At the core of this battle is the understanding that the deportation of people like Khalil has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with national security and the fundamental concept of sovereignty.

This is about whether America, as a nation, has the will to say: if you come here and advocate for our destruction, you don’t get to stay.

Because let’s get something straight. Mahmoud Khalil isn’t a U.S. citizen. He’s a foreign national whose presence in the United States is contingent on his permanent residency status: a status that is a privilege, not a right. The fact that his pregnant wife is an American citizen is irrelevant. You simply don’t have a right to be in a country that is not your own, regardless of whom you marry or impregnate, let alone having a demonstrated history of supporting genocidal terrorist organizations that rape, murder, and kidnap civilians while seeking the destruction of the same country you wish to inhabit.

Make no mistake: the Trump administration’s ramping up of deportations for foreign nationals who support terror isn’t just appropriate—it’s essential. It’s a test of whether we, as a country, still have the basic instinct to protect ourselves. And it’s a test of whether we’ve learned the fundamental lesson of national survival: you cannot remain a sovereign country if you import people who seek to destroy you from within.

But in our world of constitutional lawfare, it’s hugely important that the Trump administration does the right thing in the right way. Predictably, the Left is trying to turn this into a First Amendment issue, arguing that slogans like “death to America” or “glory to the martyrs” are just edgy poetry readings that are fully protected by the First Amendment.

And while it is true—in a broad sense—that non-citizens do have certain protections under the First Amendment, that doesn’t mean they have an unqualified right to remain in the United States while doing so.

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