Immigrants to the United States holding green cards never expect to encounter agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE.
Green-card holders (there are some 13 million of them) are formally known as lawful permanent residents, or LPRs. Some hold them for decades. They can live, do business and find gainful employment wherever they like and, of course, they pay taxes and receive benefits. A majority of them are eligible for U.S. citizenship but haven’t taken that step, either because of ties to another country or mere lethargy. In the normal order of things, aside from voting in federal elections or holding federal and some state and local offices, a green card has generally been seen as affording all of the benefits of citizenship.
This weekend, though, green-card holders got a reminder that’s not true. They are far more vulnerable to government actions than U.S. citizens and their status can be revoked.
Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and a supporter of Hamas, got a visit from ICE agents who reportedly first told him they were revoking his student visa but, once informed he was a permanent resident, then said that made no difference, since they could and would revoke that too. Thereafter, Secretary of State Marco Rubio doubled down, writing on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
Much troubles us here.
We are no fans of Hamas, which we believe to be a terrorist organization that murdered innocent Israelis and continues to fail the Palestinian people. We consider supporters of Hamas on campuses or anywhere else to be misguided. But this is not a country that arrests and detains people for thought crimes or their political views.
It should not be a crime to support Hamas in your head, anymore than it should be to support neo-Nazis or the Communist Party. It should not be a crime to discuss their operations or even to tell someone of your sympathies; it’s only a crime when an action is taken, such as funding or otherwise aiding terrorists, destroying private property, trespassing, assaulting a police officer, disrupting public order or harassing the group’s perceived enemies, which in the case of the campus of Columbia and elsewhere usually has meant Jewish students. If Kahlil has done those things, there are laws that can be applied and we support their prosecution as long as it comes with the required presumption of innocence. Jewish students have rights, too, and deserve to be free of harassment.
But yanking away the green card of a permanent U.S. resident, and/or yanking away the person himself, without any kind of trial is not the American way. Green-card holders of Palestinian origin should not be living in fear. They are in this country with legal authorization and with the implicit promise that they can live here, work here and support their families.
We would even go so far as to say that the many thoughtful Jewish leaders we have met should share our stance on this and say so, loud and clear, however intense their justified hatred of Hamas.
In all of these issues, clarity of thinking only comes when it is considered in light of how it would apply to a group from a different ideology. Far-right supporters of the president, for example, would not wish to be vulnerable as a consequence of their points of view.
The right to dissent is fundamental in these United States. So is the right not to be detained for no good reason. Questions such as what constitutes antisemitism, especially vis-à-vis criticizing the state of Israel, come with some gray. So does what constitutes supporting a terrorist organization.
But what happened to Khalil was chilling and so were Rubio’s threats, which have nothing whatsoever to do with deporting those here without legal authorization. Antisemitism won’t be wiped out by these kinds of actions; on the contrary, we risk intensifying it.
Rubio, a smart man, should know better. And for goodness sake, ICE agents should know the immigration status of their target before they enter his living place. Green-card holders should not be subject to such tactics.
All that said, we still think those U.S. permanent residents reading this with citizenship eligibility should consider going through that process. At the end, the protections are far stronger. And you are allowed to change your mind later.
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