Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) backed the Trump administration’s pursuit of the deportation of Syrian national Mahmoud Khalil.
Khalil is a green card holder who made headlines for his participation in several pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, which Trump administration officials argued were on behalf of Hamas. The terrorist organization is negotiating the second phase of a ceasefire deal with Israel amid a war in its second year.
“I support freedom of speech,” Kennedy said on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle. “How else would we know who the idiots are without freedom of speech? This case is not about freedom of speech. It’s about civilized behavior, it’s about national security, it’s about terrorism. Mr. Khalil is not an American citizen. Is he here with a green card. By word and deed at Columbia, he has shown that he supports Hamas. That’s a violation of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which says you can be deported if you support a terrorist organization. Here’s the bottom line: Mr. Khalil hates America. … You know, if you are not happy where you are, move. You’re not a tree.”
Khalil has since been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody as his deportation case is brought in court.
Kennedy stopped short of condemning the large swath of foreign students totaling 1.1 million. The Louisiana senator clarified that he is “happy to have them.”
“I happen to believe if foreign students want to come here and learn and maybe stay and assimilate and become Americans, I’m happy to have it, but I’m not happy to pay for them to come here to hate on America,” Kennedy said. “And I’m not happy to have universities support that while at the same time taking American taxpayer dollars. I hate the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.”
MULTIAGENCY TASK FORCE REVIEWS COLUMBIA FUNDING OVER ‘INACTION’ ON ANTISEMITISM
Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Education Department, and the General Services Administration are determining whether Columbia violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by allowing the protests to escalate to antisemitism. This was the multiagency task force’s first act under President Donald Trump’s executive order on measures to combat antisemitism. Already, the campus is combating rumors of layoffs and lab closures as a result.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised that further green cards and visas would be revoked from Hamas supporters. Kennedy said he was proud of Rubio for taking the strong stance after the Biden administration largely stood by while protests took over several college campuses.