Following the recent arrest and threats to deport Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, The Equinox is disappointed with our government’s response to student protestors. We believe Khalil is being unjustly targeted by President Donald Trump’s administration and made an example to intimidate other Palestinians and those sympathetic to the cause of freedom and the end of conflict in the Middle East.
Khalil is a lawful U.S. resident who has obtained a green card. Neither he nor any other student protestor committed a crime by exercising free speech. The right to petition is one of the five freedoms protected in the first amendment. By arresting protestors, our government is contradicting the constitution. Even outside of what is dictated by the constitution, basic civil and human rights should protect anyone from the type of treatment to which Khalil is being subjected.
President Donald Trump has publicly stated on social media, “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country.”
By choosing to pardon the January 6 rioters and ordering the arrests of student protestors, Trump is setting a double standard. He is picking and choosing which laws to follow based on his greater good, not the greater good of the people. Trump is prioritizing his agenda for the U.S. over thousands of lost lives. The number of lives lost in the ongoing attack on Gaza only increases everyday.
Trump’s goal is to silence the voices calling out Israel. By arresting Khalil, our government is fear mongering and using this as their example. Trump wants this country to look a certain way and seems not to care how much damage he has to enact to make that vision a reality. We encourage student protestors to be loud and let their voices be heard. Do not let the government silence your voice.
The Trump administration has also proposed the idea of the U.S. taking control of Gaza which, for those who do not know, is across the ocean. By suggesting this, Trump is only contributing to the harmful and violent rhetoric dehumanizing the Palestinian people. Both of these proposals carry the same intention of harm as classic American imperialism from decades past. We do not feel this is an era the nation should return to.
It is clear to us that Trump only cares about one agenda: His own. The continued effort in demonizing student protestors shows where his loyalties lie: Not with the American people but with his fellow rich white men.
