Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said in an interview Wednesday that all protesters pushing “hateful” speech on college campuses should be sent to jail.
“We have two levels of education: We have K through 12, and we have a higher ed. We’ve got to treat both of them different,” Tuberville said in an interview on Fox Business Network’s “The Bottom Line.”
“But when it comes to protesters, we got to make sure we treat all of them the same: Send them to jail,” he continued.
“Free speech is great, but hateful, hate, free speech is not what we need in these universities, and they don’t need to be doing things that they’re preaching from Hamas about antisemitism,” Tuberville added.
The interview came during a conversation about former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal U.S. resident, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials at his university residence on Saturday.
The Trump administration is seeking to revoke his green card over claims that Khalil is “Pro-Hamas” and engaged in “pro-terrorist,” antisemitic activity.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman blocked efforts to deport the Palestinian activist for the time being, but prosecutors requested, in a letter sent Tuesday, that the case be moved from New York to New Jersey from Louisiana, where Khalil is being held.
Many Democrats have raised First Amendment concerns following Khalil’s detainment, but the Trump administration is leaning on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives Secretary of State Marco Rubio sweeping power to expel foreigners.
“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” Rubio said Monday on the social platform X, sharing a news report about Khalil’s detainment.
Tuberville said the push by some Senate Democrats to free Khalil is “a shame.”
“The Democrats basically, you know, they don’t like our country anymore,” Tuberville continued. “They just want to, you know, tear it down. They’re going to take this guy’s side.”
“Every Democrat that we work with up here, they’re going to take this guy’s side, and they’re going to try to drive this narrative that he’s doing the right thing, he’s the people we should be backing,” he added.