To quote Jon Hamm from The Town: This is the not f*ing around crew.

Marco Rubio warned that the State Department had the authority and the obligation to remove foreigners who agitate for terror groups while in the US. Rubio started with Mahmoud Khalil, but the Secretary of State clearly intends to drive this point home through sustained application. Late yesterday, a visiting Georgetown University researcher from India got detained for deportation over alleged ties to Hamas:

A Georgetown University researcher, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, has been detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy, according to court papers.

Masked agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow, outside his home in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, his lawyer said in a lawsuit fighting for his immediate release. The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa, the lawsuit says.

According to Suri’s petition for release, he was put in deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law that the government has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and green card holder who led pro-Palestinian protests on campus. That provision gives the secretary of State the power to deport noncitizens if the secretary determines that their continued presence in the U.S. would threaten foreign policy.

Donald Trump had promised to exercise this authority much less "rarely" in response to the massive intimidation campaigns aimed at Jewish students and faculty on college campuses. Last week, Trump warned that Khalil was only the first of "many to come," and that his administration would boot out "terrorist sympathizers" who agitated in illegal activities while in the US:

Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. 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. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply. Thank you!

Suri and his defenders insist on his innocence. However, as the Daily Mail notes, Suri does have some connections to Hamas -- through his wife, a US citizen:

His wife, Mapheze Ahmad Yousef Saleh, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef who was an advisor to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, according to Campus Watch.

'Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,' a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Fox News.

'Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.  

And Suri himself appears to be spreading Hamas propaganda, although he since has tried to cover his tracks, according to Campus Watch last month:

Suri isn’t just connected to Hamas by family. He actively spreads the terror group’s propaganda and promotes virulent antisemitism on social media. In a blatant act of revisionism, he denied well-documented reports of the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, posting on Facebook: “Three lies by Israeli occupation, no proof whatsoever of babies beheaded, rapes or mass killings at carnival.”

In another post, he stated that Palestine’s elected government must sustain its resistance, legitimizing Hamas’s violent actions. Years ago, he expressed support for Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, posting a video saying, “This is what Hamas argues. Sheikh Yaseen giving the reasons why his group is fighting for their land which was stolen,” legitimizing Hamas’s violent actions.

Perhaps most disturbingly, Suri posted a video showing Hamas terrorists holding Israeli child hostages and wrote, “This is how Hamas men dealt with kids on Oct. 7.” Rather than condemn the horrifying abduction of Israeli children, Suri appeared to defend and even praise how Hamas militants “dealt” with the children.

The fact that a man with such sympathies is employed by one of America’s most prestigious universities should ignite calls for immediate action. How can Georgetown continue to employ someone who not only has familial ties to Hamas but also openly spreads its propaganda and defends its barbaric attacks?

That is a good question for Georgetown to answer, but not just GU either. Why are universities hiring terror apologists and hosting them at their institutions? It can't be that grad students are that difficult to find. Is outside money influencing these decisions -- and if so, what funding mechanisms are involved?

The more acute question now is whether State can sustain the expulsion. Khalil's case involves outright-criminal behavior at Columbia, including allegedly organizing the dissemination of Hamas propaganda on campus, the intimidation campaigns against Jews, the illegal "occupation" of a building, and the false imprisonment of two custodians. If all Suri did was post morally bankrupt nonsense on social media, the case for his expulsion might be considerably weaker. A federal judge might be more inclined to see this as a free-speech issue than in the case of Khalil, unless more overtly criminal acts are alleged.

On the other hand, the authority under the statute to expel foreign residents and visitors for terror-supporting activities is plenary and entirely at the discretion of the Secretary of State. Given that this is essentially a foreign-policy issue, the executive branch authority is at or near its zenith in these matters. This action may not even be justiciable in the end. The only check on this would probably be political, and thus far, the public isn't warming up to Hamas apologists or domestic terrorists.

The message from Rubio and Trump comes through loudly and clearly now. If Academia is not hearing it, it's out of willful deafness -- and perhaps soon-to-follow poverty when federal funds get cut off. 

Get ready for a lot more hyperventilating over these efforts from the Protection Racket Media. The same media outlets that described the Minneapolis riots and arson as "mostly peaceful" and cheered on censorship efforts by the government on Big Tech platforms will no doubt create narratives that the Trump administration is attempting to shut down free speech. It will take independent media platforms such as ours to push back against their hypocrisy and to argue for the legitimate exercise of authority to prevent terror-propagandists from exploiting our visa systems. 

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