On the deportation of dissent
When I, an international student in the US, began writing dispatches from the protests at Columbia last year I felt as though good things were once again possible. Not because, as you can read in those posts, I was ever particularly optimistic of success against the power of the state, but because the protests reflected a concerted act; a coming together of groups Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and others too, to exert strategic pressure on an institution indirectly funding the massacre of peoples far away.
Many of the things that I think are good are not possible except by concerted actions of disparate people. It happens that those particular things are also the things most important to me: human freedom; egalitarianism; democracy.
I’m emphasising my own preferences because there are many people who have different preferences, who are not interested in what might be broadly called the liberal society. They value instead hierarchical power expressed through domination and subordination. Those people have the advantage that their goals do not require the coordination of diverse groups: only the expression of the raw power of the strong over the weak.
The coordination of individually-weak students against the institutional might of the Columbia administration posed a genuine threat to the established order. It is only through the lens of threat—that administrators did in fact feel pressure exerted upon them—that the aggression of the organisation can be understood.
Last night, the Department of Homeland Security detained Mahmoud Khalil, lead negotiator of the Columbia Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Khalil is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin and an American green-card holder. According to ICE, he was detained at a DHS facility in New Jersey. But when his wife, eight-months pregnant, went to visit him, she was informed he was not there. His location is currently unknown; he has disappeared.
According to Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), the arresting DHS agents told Khalil that the U.S. Department of State had revoked his student visa. But Khalil does not have a student visa. As a green card holder, he has permanent residency. DHS has given close to no justification for the arrest, except to claim, in a statement to Drop Site News, “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
The goal here is the deportation of dissent. In an executive order 10 days ago, the Trump Administration promised to ‘go on offence to enforce law and order’ by ‘cancel[ing] the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.’ This is a mode of speech suppression that seeks to physically remove the undesirable elements it can, and, through fear, ensure silence in everyone else.
To my mind the arrest of a student on utterly specious grounds by a neo-fascist state, clearly designed to breed a climate of fear among students, calls for the resignation of a university president. That role is untenable so long as it does not involve the ferocious protection of student speech. The same goes for faculty, who last year demonstrated a mixed commitment to the defence of students. The situation requires their concerted action.
I’m not optimistic. The reason the protests made it feel as though good things were again possible was exactly that their example was so exceptional, so rare. The habits of solidarity required for concerted action are gone; the muscles required for effective striking have atrophied. Individual faculty fear the individual costs they will bear by acting. But already they are collectively bearing other costs: the costs of standing by while the liberal university dies on their watch.
Meanwhile the US government is effectively a one party state. The Democrats seem as unwilling as they are unable to amount a defence of liberalism. I suspect that the Trump administration chose to make an example out of Khalil for this reason. They knew no concerted action would come. They knew they could get away with it.
The rise of fascist tendencies in the US is appalling and deportation is an overreaction here but I find your arguments bizarre. I am an immigrant to the UK. My family dissented from communism for generations, for example, having a different view for how their country should be governed and how they want to live. Political dissent requires citizenship. The goal is to restore your share of influence over the system that’s been taken away by the authorities. So non-citizen dissent is an oxymoron. You don’t have any part-ownership of the system. You (and me) are guests, even on a permanent visa. Thus non-citizen “dissent” is leaving.
I have to wonder why you wanted to come here in the first place. Were you planning on taking part in anti-ICE demonstrations in New York, like you took part in pro-Hamas demonstrations at Columbia? Were you aware of the rioting in L.A., and the "mostly peaceful" demonstrations elsewhere? You might as well say so, because you will never again step foot in America. Ever. Once you get on that list, they do not exactly take you off. So candor can't hurt you any more grievously than you've already been hurt. Did you shoot a man in Reno, just to watch him die? Every time you hear that whistle blow, do you hang your head and cry? Come on, little fella, spit it out. You'll feel better. Incidentally, did you manage to get around the U.S. while you were "studying" here? They didn't call the song "America the Beautiful" by mistake, so I hope you at least have memories that go beyond airports and a single college campus in mid-town Manhattan.
I have a lifetime of advocacy of free expression, and indulge in it myself with gleefully sarcastic wise-assery at every turn. Last year, I compared and contrasted Archie Bunker Trump, the Rodeo Clown from Queens with Cleopatra "Drunken Word Salad" Harris. Which is to say that I fart in both directions. And proudly so, like Benjamin Franklin did 200 and something years ago. But I do this as an American citizen, not as a visitor. Oh, and last July I predicted that Trump would win. I cast a write-in vote myself, but the numbers are the numbers. There's a formula that has predicted the winner of all but two presidential elections since WW II, and last year it favored Trump. I won $100 on a bet with a Democrat who paid up and then "unfriended" me. Dang. Liberals have such thin skins and a high, almost desperate, need for affirmation. Maybe you can tell me what that's about.
I can see your case from both sides. I go far on the free expression front and don't like to see it eroded even for fools like you. In fact, one signal virtue of free exercise is that it unmasks fools for all to see. Yet, in your case I can understand why the U.S. customs and immigration authorities denied you entry to my county. Yes, my country. Not yours. Remember that. By the way, denial of entry is different from deportation, even if both involve an airplane ride outta here. I'd expect an Ivy League "student" to grasp the distinction, but Columbia really ain't quite what it used to be, is it? It seems that they'll let just about any furriner in these days. Anyway, now is probably not the time to have a track record of supporting sit-ins and camp-ins on behalf of terrorists in Gaza. Wow, who knew?
So, for now, I guess you'll have to confine your overwrought and actually somewhat amusing self-righteousness to your home turf. Who knows, maybe next time you can try Canada. Good luck. You never know. They appreciate sanctimony. If you do that, make sure to go in our summer, Canada's unofficial motto being "nine months of winter and three months of bad ice skating." In the meantime, will New Zealand let you in? I don't recommend flying to Mexico and trying to walk across the border. If the drug traffickers don't get you, the heat, the scorpions, and the rattlesnakes will. And the Border Patrol. Don't forget about them.