The text seeks to analyze how there is a relativization of rights for immigrants and legal residents in the U.S. under the new Trump administration. To do so, it examines the case of Mahmoud Khalil.
Over the past few weeks, the world has watched massive protests erupt in the streets of New York, demanding freedom for Mahmoud Khalil, one of the voices of the student movement against the war in Gaza, which began after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. However, what could Khalil’s imprisonment mean for the future, not only for immigrants but also for American citizens?
Mahmoud Khalil is Palestinian, born in Syria and has been living in the United States since 2022, due to his pursuit of a master’s degree at Columbia University. He is also married to an American woman – eight months pregnant – and has a green card, the document that allows immigrants to live and work in the country legally.
Mahmoud Khalil’s case is directly linked to the student protests against the war in Gaza and US funding for Israel. According to the Council on Foreign Relations website, at the beginning of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the US gave Israel US$ 12.5 billion in direct military assistance. The Israeli government has also been accused of genocide by various international actors, including the United Nations, due to human rights violations against Palestinians, as denounced by Palestinian diplomat Riyad Mansour. As an active voice against these actions, Khalil was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 8, according to BBC News.
HOW DID IT START?
The latest US elections resulted in Donald Trump becoming the new president of the United States of America on January 20, 2025. During his presidential campaign, there was a series of speeches characterizing his proposals for the new term. Themes such as the trade dispute with China, economic protectionism, the Russia-Ukraine war and anti-immigration policies were a series of promises that the Republican candidate made during speeches and interviews.
Openly, Trump declared that the anti-immigration policy would be one of his main measures and that it would return with more intensity than in his last term, continuing the guidelines of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) project.
As promised in his campaign, the United States has been carrying out a daily series of deportations of illegal immigrants on its territory. For the American context, deportations are not something new, since previous governments, such as Biden’s, also practiced them widely. However, how these deportations have been carried out has led to diplomatic tensions between the US and other countries. This has been the case with the Brazilian and Colombian governments – as evidenced by Gustavo Petro’s open letter to Trump, expressing his rejection of the deportation policy that has been implemented.
In addition, Itamaraty, Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, commented on the deportation of 88 Brazilians: “The indiscriminate use of handcuffs and chains violates the terms of the agreement with the US, which provides the dignified, respectful and humane treatment of returnees,” says Agência Brasil. This agreement was signed by President Donald Trump himself in his first term, in 2018, together with his counterpart, then President Michel Temer, reports Agência Brasil (2025).
In addition, the brutality and lack of ethics that directly impact the lives of deportees, who are often imprisoned without dignity and separated from their families, are also seen. One of the highlighted cases is about a family (the parents are immigrants, while the children are American citizens, except one) who were arrested while taking their 10-year-old daughter, a US citizen, to get treatment for brain cancer. While seeking treatment, they were arrested and deported to Mexico, leaving behind one of their children – a 17-year-old – in the USA.
When asked how to solve the problem of deporting family members with mixed migratory status (where some members are citizens or legal residents and others are undocumented) without separating parents from children, Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, stated coldly: “of course there is a way – families can be deported together”, as reported in El Pais. Thus, it is clear that Homan’s words express the new administration’s harshness on migration issues.
WHAT IS CITIZENSHIP BY BIRTH AND THE GREEN CARD?
According to the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, a person can be considered a US citizen according to two fundamental principles: jus soli and jus sanguinis. The first guarantees citizenship to the majority of individuals born on American soil (excluding children of foreign heads of state or foreign diplomats). The second guarantees US citizenship to individuals born outside the country, based on the lineage of their parents and ancestors. However, in most European countries, jus sanguinis is the norm. For this reason, Donald Trump, since his first term in office, has questioned the right to citizenship by birth.
It is important to remember that Donald Trump tried to modify, employing a decree, the Fourteenth Amendment, added in 1868, which clearly states: all people born or naturalized in the USA have the right to citizenship. Shortly after taking office, Donald Trump sought to change the provision so that children of illegal immigrants or those with temporary visas would not be considered US citizens. The measure also aims to target those who practice so-called “birth tourism”, practiced by people who go to the US just to give birth, thus guaranteeing citizenship for their children, a popular practice among Brazilians, as shown in a BBC report (2025). However, Judge John Coughenour indefinitely suspended the decree entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”, claiming that it was an unconstitutional decision. In response, the president decided to take the case to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), even though the constitutional text is explicit.
In another instance, the status of green card holders, who can live and work permanently in the US, is noteworthy. Although they are legal residents, they are not entitled to the same rights as American citizens. For example, if legal residents decide to travel abroad, they can spend a maximum of one year outside the country. Furthermore, a legal resident can be legally deported if they commit crimes or expose the nation to insecurity. This was the allegation made about Mahmoud Khalil. However, he has not been formally charged with a crime, which makes his case exceptional for someone who has a green card. Moreover, Marco Rubio (US Secretary of State) did not make it clear in his statements how Khalil’s actions could be harming national security. In addition, the Secretary declared on his social media network “X” that all green cards and visas of Hamas sympathizers will be revoked, so that they can be deported.
WHAT IS THE FIRST AMENDMENT WORTH?
One of the results of Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest was the great debate about the US First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression, the press and the separation of church and state. Khalil never committed any crime, so much so that no charges were brought against him. What did occur, in fact, was the allegation that Khalil’s political activism could pose a risk to national security, according to bureaucrats from the US Department of Homeland Security.
There are allegations by Trump and other bureaucrats, such as Marco Rubio, that he has links to Hamas and that he is an active sympathizer of an anti-Semitic campaign on the campus of Columbia University. In addition, other Israeli activists at this educational institution claim that Mahmoud is the leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a coalition of student groups demanding an end to ties between the university and Israel, as well as an urgent ceasefire in Gaza. However, he denies this and says that he only acted as a spokesperson between the protesters and the university.
Considering the facts, it is interesting to relate official government positions with rhetoric that oozes hypocrisy and cynicism. We see the persecution of a Palestinian student living in the US, married to an American and about to become a father, based on arguments claiming Khalil’s support for Hamas and that he has anti-Semitic tendencies. However, the same criticism is not directed, for example, at Elon Musk, who currently heads the US Department of Government Efficiency. As the whole world observed, Musk gave a salute with his arm outstretched at Donald Trump’s inauguration event and suffered little consequence. Also, why not recall the South African’s open support for the German far-right party, AfD, which uses Nazi slogans in its campaigns? According to the BBC (2024), Björn Höcke, the party’s leader, was accused of uttering words that referred to the Sturmabteilung, a paramilitary organization of the Nazi party. Not to mention, since his presidential campaign, Trump has had relations with anti-Semitic groups on the American right, considered “crucial” to his government coalition.
It’s worth noting that Mahmoud Khalil himself said before his arrest that there is no place for anti-Semitism in his political demonstrations. As a matter of fact, the protests at Columbia University are attended by Jewish students who do not support the Zionist regime in Israel.
WHO PAYS THE PRICE FOR HYPOCRISY?
The new Trump administration goes to great lengths to spout rhetoric that celebrates fiscal austerity, traditionalism, nativism and anti-immigration, among other characteristics. Based on the facts, the Trump administration may have used Mahmoud Khalil to energize its official discourse against immigrants.
Additionally, there is an administration’s effort to use Khalil as a scapegoat, that is, to justify the fiscal austerity policies that the government intends to carry out concerning university funding. In this regard, Trump announced a cut of US$ 400 million from Columbia University, claiming that “the institution has failed to combat anti-Semitism on campus”. However, since Khalil does not use anti-Semitic discourse, the argument for austerity policy is not grounded in reality. Antisemitism, it should be noted, is present in various parts of the American population, such as conservatives, Nazi groups and American militias, such as the “Proud Boys” group. However, it is worth pointing out that Mahmouh Khalil’s group (CUAD) does not chant anti-Semitic ideologies. Quite the opposite, they protest against the Israeli state and the way it has been conducting its war against Hamas.
It is important to note that the Republican has a populist rhetoric, which is often aligned with trends that seek to attack educational institutions, their professors and researchers, according to The Guardian. Take for example the Covid-19 period, when Trump acted contrary to what health researchers (often linked to important knowledge institutions) and experts recommended, according to the New York Times. In addition, Trump recently signed an executive order that begins a process of dismantling the US Department of Education.
One of the most important debates to emerge from this, however, is the relativization of “freedom of speech”. Guaranteed by the US First Amendment, freedom of expression is a right established to ensure that society expresses its opinions, thus guaranteeing that the democratic regime is perpetuated efficiently. Nevertheless, it seems that for green card holders and temporary residents, criticizing the country’s foreign policy can become grounds for deportation.
The attacks on protesters calling for an end to US support for Israel’s Zionist regime and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, coupled with the possibility of Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation, indicate that “freedom of expression” is indeed a partial right – in the new administration’s view.
Furthermore, it is important to highlight a more recent case, very similar to Mahmoud Khalil’s, in which a Turkish student was arrested on the same allegations – practicing anti-Semitism at university – according to a BBC News report (2025). Rumeysa Ozturk is one of the demonstrators in the pro-Palestinian protests and is a PhD student at Tufts University, which was informed that Ozturk had her visa revoked last Wednesday (03/26). It should be noted that the student is a legal resident of the United States.
The facts therefore demonstrate an attempt by the Republican government to silence its opponents, meaning that it is possible that the various opposition groups (made up of immigrants and Americans) could suffer censorship, just as Mahmoud Khalil did. Thus, it can be said that the US is experiencing a moment of relativization of rights.
The text was written under the supervision of DPolitik editor Maria Mont’ Serrat Bomfim.
References
https://iworld.com/en/programs/childbirth-in-the-usa
https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/c9w58wnnr7po
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/03/trump-asks-supreme-court-to-step-in-on-birthright-citizenship/
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/palestine-letter-08oct24
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79zxzj90nno
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Proud-Boys
https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/cy4y2n3357no
https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1898858967532441945
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7vdnlmgyndo
https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/cz0lye4ger0o
https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1898858967532441945
