Photo: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
For the conservative pundit class, few issues have been as central to their cause as their supposed defense of free speech. Over the last decade, they have built a powerful political movement revolting against the force of so-called cancel culture, which they argued had restricted permissible dialogue and punished free thinkers willing to speak their own truths.
But as the Trump regime moves to expel from this country a Palestinian U.S. permanent resident based solely on his political expression, many of those free speech warriors have changed their tune. The arrest and attempted deportation of Columbia University graduate and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil demonstrates the clear hypocrisy of many conservative voices when it comes to free speech in America. Conservatives who previously opposed “cancel culture” on the grounds of defending free speech are now quick to support state violence against critics of Israel through the arrest and expulsion of those critics from U.S. society.
On March 8, officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security arrived at the home of Khalil and arrested him, separating him from his wife, a U.S. citizen who is 8 months pregnant. He was ultimately moved to a detention facility in Louisiana, a friendly jurisdiction for government cases against immigrants. Though Trump’s desire to immediately deport the legal U.S. permanent resident has been temporarily blocked by Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York, the threat against him remains. After speaking with Khalil on Tuesday, his attorney Amy Greer said that he “is moved by the extraordinarily broad and steadfast support he has received from a variety of communities that understand what is at stake.”
Khalil faces no criminal charges, and no evidence has been offered to substantiate the Trump administration’s propagandistic claims that he is a “national security threat” who was “inciting violence,” in the words of Trump border czar Tom Homan. Indeed, top White House and Republican Party officials have essentially admitted that Khalil has not committed any crime. Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified his attempt to deport Khalil by claiming — without evidence — that he supports Hamas and “antisemitic activities.” This demonstrates that even as Rubio grossly misrepresents Khalil’s politics, he is actually attempting to deport Khalil because of his alleged politics. When asked what crime Khalil committed, House Speaker Mike Johnson reverted to propaganda talking points.
It is worth noting what Khalil has actually said. In a 2024 interview with CNN, Khalil stated, “As a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other. Our movement is a movement for social justice and freedom and equality for everyone.”
Perhaps that is why large numbers of Jewish protesters took over the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City on Thursday to demand Khalil’s release.
The Trump administration has argued that it has the power to deport Khalil under the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, which states, “An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” But the White House has not shown how Khalil’s advocacy against Israel’s genocide in Gaza would cause “serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” unless one considers it “adverse” to end U.S. support for that genocide. Under the Trump administration’s sweeping interpretation of this language, any legal permanent resident of the U.S. who criticizes any aspect of Trump’s foreign policy — from Trump’s desire to occupy Greenland to his gross abandonment of Ukraine — could be deported. This is a clear attack on the First Amendment and constitutionally protected free speech.
A wide range of conservative voices who have frequently criticized “cancel culture” have been quick to defend the Trump administration’s ugly actions. Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk is one example, having made cancel culture his calling card while justifying the deportation of Khalil. Kirk called him “a Hamas propagandist” and claimed without evidence that he “distributed pamphlets on Hamas’ propaganda” — claims that remain unsubstantiated and are fundamentally about political speech. Dinesh D’Souza followed the same path, arguing against “cancel culture” on the one hand while calling for Khalil’s expulsion based on his alleged offensive speech against “Western civilization,” an allegation that actually appears to be based on a fake Instagram post. Ben Shapiro has often opined against cancellation campaigns that have targeted everything from slave-owning historical figures to present-day conservative media personalities like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. However, Shapiro has retweeted multiple voices on X arguing in support of Khalil’s removal from the U.S., while sharing nothing regarding the free speech concerns or unconstitutionality of this action. The list goes on and on.
To be fair, there have been exceptions to this hypocrisy. Ann Coulter, in her typical style, stated on X, “There’s almost no one I don’t want to deport, but unless they’ve committed a crime, isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment?” Candace Owen has questioned the absence of criminal charges against Khalil and debunked conservative claims regarding what Khalil has said.
Prominent conservative publications that have argued against “cancel culture” have staked out divergent positions. The Wall Street Journal has been sympathetic to deporting Khalil over supposedly “pro-terrorist” speech, due to the student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest stating, “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.” It raises the question: If a Ukrainian student group took this stand, would the Wall Street Journal support their deportation too? Maya Sulkin, a reporter for Bari Weiss’s Free Press, argued that Khalil’s deportation was not about free speech but on-campus crimes. Of course, Khalil has not been charged with or convicted of any crimes, something Sulkin failed to mention. In contrast, Reason Magazine, whose tagline is “Free Minds and Free Markets,” has published multiple pieces that are skeptical or critical of Trump’s actions against Khalil.
What emerges from the above examples is that too many conservative voices are quick to defend free speech when it serves their ideological goals, but are equally quick to endorse the violent repression of free speech when the speech in question runs counter to those goals. This targeting of Khalil by Trump and the conservative media ecosystem is just the latest escalation in a decadeslong campaign to silence critics of Israel in the U.S. These strategies have included unfounded claims that critics of Israel are antisemitic, denying opponents of Israeli policy funding or employment, calling them “terrorists,” blocking or removing people from elected office, and preventing advocates for Palestinian freedom from participating in public discourse. The use of these tactics is by no means limited to Republicans, as the Kamala Harris presidential campaign demonstrated when it said no to having a Palestinian speaker at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
Trump has promised that Khalil’s arrest is “the first arrest of many to come.” It is worth noting that this policy statement comes directly from the Heritage Foundation, the same conservative think tank that brought us Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther” explicitly calls for deporting leaders of the Palestine solidarity organizations who aren’t U.S. citizens. It also demonizes critics of Israel as part of a “global Hamas Support Network” and ludicrously labels advocates for Palestinian freedom as “destroying capitalism and democracy.”
The simple and ugly reality is that pro-Israel repression in the United States is a necessary ingredient for maintaining U.S. military support for Israel’s destruction of Palestinian society. Without this internal climate of repression, more Americans would be likely to oppose the immense military support the U.S. has long provided to a nation that subjects millions of Palestinians to apartheid and genocide.
As with many of Trump’s actions, his attack on Khalil’s freedom may have backfired by triggering a dramatic response from advocates for civil rights and Palestinian freedom. Protests are occurring at multiple campuses across the U.S, and the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it is joining Khalil’s legal team. Multiple organizations have launched grassroots campaigns calling on universities to oppose Trump’s actions and protect student rights.
Some elected Democrats have taken a stand in support of Mahmoud Khalil, though many have remained silent. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., declared, “Today it’s Mahmoud Khalil. Tomorrow it’s me or you.” Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee posted “Free Mahmoud Khalil” on X and decried Republican hypocrisy on free speech: “So pro-‘freedom of speech’ that Republicans will DETAIN you if you disagree with them. This is actual cancel culture.” A small contingent from the House of Representatives have released a letter demanding Khalil’s release, as have some New York state elected officials. More actions are expected from other Democrats in the hours and days ahead.
However, many Democrats have not said anything. Most embarrassingly, Khalil’s own member of Congress, New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat, told The Intercept, “I expect the Department of Justice to work within the confines of the law and that due process is guaranteed to [Khalil] and his family.” This is an utterly absurd position given Trump’s total hostility to the rule of law. Meanwhile, senior Democratic Party leaders have been muddled in their own language. Both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries combined calls for Khalil’s release with the repetition of false claims of antisemitism. Through their statements, they implicitly erased the many Jews who support Khalil and participated in protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
But despite the silence of many, Trump’s actions have brought the vigorous defense of freedom of speech and support for the Palestinian people back into the center of U.S. political debate. The critical task at hand is to combine a robust rejection of Trump’s repression of Palestinian voices with strategies that advance the broader cause. That means freeing Khalil and blocking the detention and deportation of other leaders like him. But it also means putting pro-Israel networks on the defensive, shattering the lie of Republican concern for free speech, and holding silent Democrats accountable. By doing so, we can begin to liberate America from the new McCarthyism of pro-Palestine censorship and repression. And through this, we can end U.S. support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
