On Saturday, March 8, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials arrested Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil at his New York home, informing him and his wife that his student visa had been revoked. When he informed ICE agents that he is actually a permanent resident with a green card, ICE agents responded that that, too, had been revoked. Videos of the arrest shows plainclothes police officers refusing to identify themselves as they load him into a car and take him away. Khalil has since been transferred to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, more than a thousand miles from his family and his lawyers. He has been charged with no crime, has no prior arrest record. As one White House official specifically said, “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law.” Rather, Khalil has been targeted because he played a central and public role in pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide protests at Columbia University and because, unlike others, he did not cover his face, making him an easy target.

Khalil is the first immigrant to be targeted by President Donald Trump’s efforts to criminalize pro-Palestinian protests and to suppress campus activism against Israel, under the guise of combatting antisemitism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been explicit that the aim is to punish and suppress those who challenge Trump’s foreign policy. President Trump has promised that Khalil’s detention is “the first arrest of many to come.”

To be clear: Immigration authorities have, without bringing any charges and with the barest of legal justifications, detained a legal permanent resident because of his political activities and threatened him with deportation. The president promises that this is just the beginning: Recently, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was invoked for the first time since World War II to deport — without due process — those whom the current administration considers enemies. Similarly to what happened to Khalil, on March 20, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University, was arrested, sent to a detention facility in Louisiana, and informed that his visa will be revoked due to the Department of Homeland Security’s purported concerns about the opinions of his Palestinian-American wife.

We should all be concerned. Regardless of whether you share Khalil’s views or Dr. Suri’s wife’s views about what is happening in Palestine, their arrests pave the way for a crackdown on free speech of all Americans, one that is particularly harmful to immigrants. The basis on which the government acted is an affront to free-speech rights: Khalil was attacked because of his opinions, and Dr. Suri was attacked because of his wife’s opinions. If these immigrants who are in the United States legally can be arrested and deported because their views oppose those in power, many more could find themselves in the State’s crosshairs. This is a threat to all immigrants, to all students, and to all universities. 

The arrest and deportation of students and scholars who protest the government’s policies is part of a broader attack on universities. The Trump administration’s gutting of federal science funding, efforts to dismantle of the Department of Education, and attacks on diversity occur alongside efforts by politicians, donors, trustees, and lobby groups to pressure universities to arrest student protesters, fire faculty, and violate shared governance. Too often, university administrators have played along, bending over backward to appease those determined to undermine their university. We must reject such anticipatory obedience. 

In a recent letter co-authored with the President of Vanderbilt University and published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Chancellor Andrew Martin wrote: “Universities must return to their foundational purpose and recommit to the core principles that sustain them.” The University’s Statement of Principle Regarding Freedom of Expression states that one of those core principles is freedom of speech: “the university should consider First Amendment principles as the baseline of its conduct pertaining to speech.” Having open dialogue without fear of retribution is a central tenet of our university and our community. Now is the time for our leaders to live up to these ideals.

30% of WashU’s student body is international students, and this invaluable part of our community is at increased risk because the Trump administration has empowered ICE to conduct raids in schools, hospitals, and places of worship — sanctuaries that have historically been protected. St. Louis City and County do not have a 287(g) agreement with ICE — that is, a program for allowing state and local agencies to assist immigration enforcement agents. We call upon WashU leadership to protect our students, staff, and faculty by committing to non-cooperation with ICE beyond the legal requirements of judicial warrants. 

WashU has made decisions, in the past, that find us on the right side of history. For example, in the 1940s, our university took in Japanese-American students after former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1942 Executive Order 9066, which called for the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Some of St. Louis’ most respected community members, WashU’s most respected alumni, and their families are among those to whom WashU gave sanctuary. We challenge Chancellor Andrew Martin to meet this extraordinary moment and uphold our values as an institution once more.

Faculty Contributors:

Marlon Bailey | Professor, Department of African and African American Studies, Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Arts & Sciences

Seema Dahlheimer | Teaching Professor, Director of the Engineering Communication Center, McKelvey School of Engineering

Angela Miller | Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Arts & Sciences

Aaron Neiman | Department of Anthropology (Former); Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brown School (Current)

Scott Ross | Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Arts & Sciences

Stephanie Shady | Lecturer of Political Science, Associate Director of Graduate Studies, Arts & Sciences

Jean-Francois Trani | Associate Professor, Brown School