Mahmoud Khalil was a prominent student leader in Columbia University’s pro-Palestine protests last year. On Saturday, he was taken into detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. According to The Associated Press, his attorney says she spoke to one of the agents over the phone, who told her that Khalil’s student visa was being revoked. The AP also reported that when the attorney told the agents that Khalil had a green card, they said this, too, was being revoked.

Since the 9/11 attacks, Democrats and Republicans have gone along with the idea that saying the magic word ‘terrorism’ amounts to a permission slip to undermine core freedoms.

This is a disturbing escalation in the Trump administration’s war against basic free speech norms. Trump has previously called for cable news channels he finds unfair to have their licenses revokedunconstitutionally retaliated against the AP for refusing to redesignate the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America” in its reporting, and even floated the idea of a constitutional amendment to enable protesters to be imprisoned for flag-burning. But Khalil’s arrest crosses a frightening new threshold of authoritarianism.

Let’s be very clear, though, that this didn’t come out of nowhere. In the decades since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, both Democrats and Republicans have gone along with the idea that saying the magic word “terrorism” amounts to a permission slip to undermine core freedoms. This is always where that road led.

If there was any doubt that Khalil was being punished for protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, it was removed the next day. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that “the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters” will be revoked “so they can be deported.” Trump himself went further on Mondaydeclaring:

“This is the first arrest of many to come. 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, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. … If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children … you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply.”

The idea that protests against the war in Gaza are innately pro-Hamas is an insult to the intelligence of the American public. Trump himself has often claimed to have opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. While the evidence shows that this likely wasn’t his position at the time, if it had been, would that have made him “pro-Saddam Hussein”? Similarly, many in the MAGA movement oppose U.S. backing for Ukraine. If that doesn’t make them “anti-American,” why are students who oppose U.S. backing for Israel’s carnage in Gaza “anti-American”?

And the accusation of antisemitism is, if anything, even more offensive. Anyone who has spent time around the Palestinian solidarity movement in the United States knows that many students who participate in such protests are themselves Jewish — and it’s to be expected that Jewish students would be more likely than Hindu or Catholic or Episcopalian students to have spent time wrestling with how they felt about Israel and Palestine and to thus be inspired to show up to protest the atrocities in Gaza. One of the most popular slogans of Jewish peace organizations says it all: “Not in Our Name.”

Nor is any of this the heart of the issue. Anyone at the protests who actually did support Hamas would have a position I would find loathsome. Perhaps Khalil did have this position (although, if so, I haven’t yet seen any evidence to back up that accusation). But free speech protections have to mean that people can take loathsome positions. No authoritarian regime has ever censored people who say things the regime likes. The test of our commitment to free speech is always whether we defend people’s rights to say things we find vile.

Trump’s announcement suggests that free speech, at least for green card holders, stops at support for “the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children.” But tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women and children have been slaughtered by the Israeli army since Oct. 7, 2023, and millions have been displaced.

Should green card holders who support the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu face deportation for their views?

The whole point of the First Amendment (which applies to government censorship) and broader free speech norms (which can apply to nonstate actors) is that all sides get to have their say, so that the public can hear it all and freely make up their minds. It would be difficult to overstate how central this is to the whole premise of popular democracy.

Trump doesn’t think he can get away with arresting American citizens who agree with Khalil, but his statement leaves little room for doubt that he’d love to do so.

Right now, Trump doesn’t think he can get away with arresting American citizens who agree with Mahmoud Khalil, but his statement leaves little room for doubt that he’d love to do so. He says he “won’t tolerate” protests he deems “anti-American.” His announcement feels like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel about the rise of an authoritarian regime. But let’s be very clear on how we got here, because the rot that led to this started spreading long before Trump was first elected in 2016.

George W. Bush responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks with unprecedented assaults on civil liberties. The “PATRIOT Act” he pushed through Congress allowed for records to be searched without normal judicial warrants in flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment. He set up “black sites” around the world to detain suspected terrorists without charging them with any crime and openly used “enhanced interrogation” (i.e., torture). He even started a drone program whereby terrorism suspects in countries with which the United States wasn’t at war were extrajudicially executed as they sat at restaurants or cafes surrounded by innocents.

When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, he declined to prosecute anyone involved the illegal torture program, declaring that he wanted to “look forward, not backward.” (I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone arrested for trying to rob a liquor store used that line.) Worse yet, Obama not only didn’t reverse the rest of Bush’s civil liberties-shredding policies but, in some cases, made them his own and expanded them. He greatly expanded the use of drones, even killing American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki and his son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki in Yemen. Obama claimed that al-Awlaki was involved in plotting terrorist attacks, but this claim was never tested in any sort of judicial process. And neither President Joe Biden nor, of course, Trump himself ever gave up the powers asserted by Bush and Obama.

Trump’s open and unabashed declaration that he won’t “tolerate” protests he dislikes and that he’ll use arrests and deportations to intimidate protesters into silence crosses a new frontier in authoritarianism. But we didn’t go from 0 to 60 when he was elected.

I hope the courts block Trump’s latest actions. There’s some hope that this will happen. There’s already been action from a district judge to temporarily block Khalil’s removal from the United States pending further review of the case. But his belief that he can get away with it by accusing protesters of supporting terrorism makes all too much sense after decades of both Democrats and Republicans acting as if there’s a “terrorism exception” to our core rights and freedoms.

If we’re ever going to come back from this brink, we need to take a hard look at how we got here.

I am a burgis

Ben Burgis is a political commentator and author. He has written articles for Jacobin and The Daily Beast.

Stocks fell sharply Monday amid growing economic uncertainty and persistent worries about President Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Wall Street’s worst day of 2025 came a day after Trump refused to rule out a recession in an interview with Fox News.

The S&P 500 fell roughly 2.7% and is now down 9% from its record high just one month ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 900 points, or approximately 2%. And the Nasdaq Composite had the worst day of the three major indexes, falling 4 percent in its worst day since mid-2022.

Many big names suffered significant losses Monday, including many of the “Magnificent 7” tech stocks that led the markets to new highs in recent years. Chipmaker Nvidia fell 5% and is now down 30% in the last two months. Elon Musk’s Tesla plunged a stunning 15%, the company’s worst day since Sept. 2020.

The terrible month for stocks comes as the latest data on consumer sentiment and inflation expectations suggests Trump’s policies, particularly on tariffs, have spooked both businesses and consumers. But in regards to businesses’ requests for more clarity on the implementation of tariffs, Trump told Fox News, “They have plenty of clarity.”

In fact, Trump and his allies have admitted that pain could be coming soon for the American economy. “There’ll be a little disturbance,” Trump said during his joint address to Congress. “We’ve become addicted to this government spending, and there’s going to be a detox period,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC. Simultaneously, Republicans are scrambling to blame former President Joe Biden for the economy’s struggles.

“What I have to do is build a strong country,” Trump said Sunday. “You can’t really watch the stock market.” But on days like Monday, Americans have no choice but to watch the consequences of his policies.

James Downu

James Downie is a writer and editor for BLN Daily. He was an editor and columnist for The Washington Post and has also written for The New Republic and Foreign Policy.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Monday that he had withdrawn a recommendation to reduce the prison sentences of Erik and Lyle Menendez, citing what he called the brothers’ “continual failure to show full insight and accept full responsibility” for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.

Last October, Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascón, recommended the court lower the brothers’ sentences from life without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life. Since Erik and Lyle were both under 26 at the time of the crime, such a sentence would make them eligible for parole immediately. Weeks after Gascón’s announcement, he lost his race for re-election to Hochman.

Hochman said the request to withdraw is “based on the current state of the record” and left the door open to supporting resentencing, with some conditions.

“We are requesting that the prior District Attorney’s motion for resentencing be withdrawn,” Hochman said in a statement. “The basis for that request is that the prior motion did not examine or consider whether the Menendez brothers have exhibited full insight and taken complete responsibility for their crimes by continuing for the past over 30 years to lie about their claims of self-defense.”

In 1996, the brothers were convicted of shooting and killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion seven years before. Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, claimed they were abused by their father and described the killings as self-defense. During the trial, prosecutors argued the sexual abuse allegations were false and said the brothers killed their parents for financial reasons.

The decades-old case was thrust back into the spotlight after the release of the 2024 Netflix scripted series, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” Although Erik initially criticized the show’s portrayal, Lyle said recently he was “grateful” for the renewed public interest the Netflix series brought to the case.

“The media and Ryan Murphy’s project was very widely disseminated, and it really did actually move a lot of people to understand the childhood trauma that Erik and I suffered, and particularly the horrific stuff that Erik suffered,” Lyle said on a podcast.

Last month, Hochman urged a judge to reject the Menendezes’ request for a new trial. Tamara Goodell, a cousin of the brothers, has asked for the district attorney to be removed from the case, accusing him of being “hostile, dismissive and patronizing” to the family during a Jan. 2 meeting.

“The lack of compassion was palpable, and the family left feeling not only ignored but further intimidated and revictimized,” she wrote in a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Civil Rights Division. Goodell requested the case be turned over to the attorney general’s office.

In his statement, Hochman said the request to withdraw the resentencing motion is “based on the current state of the record” and left the door open to supporting resentencing in the future, with some conditions.

“If they were to finally come forward and unequivocally and sincerely admit and completely accept responsibility for their lies of self-defense and the attempted suborning of perjury they engaged in, then the Court should weigh such new insight into the analysis of rehabilitation and resentencing — as will the People,” he wrote.

Although Hochman removed the office’s prior request, the court will proceed with the resentencing hearing set for March 20 and 21.

Allison Detzel

Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for BLN Digital.