Trump Assumes The Power Of Arrest

Saturday night, American immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) agents arrested pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who is a holder of a Permanent Resident (Green) Card, in his on-campus home in Manhattan in front of his pregnant American wife. According to his lawyer, he was told that they were revoking his student visa, which was not the status on which he was in the country, on the basis of a presidential executive order. When he produced his green card, agents told him they were revoking that, too. He was whisked off to a detention centre in Louisiana, far from New York’s legal system and his family. President Trump then stated this was “the first arrest of many to come.”

If Khalil is indeed linked to Hamas, as the American government alleges, there are legal ways of testing the theory. Arrest and prosecution for a terrorism-related crime are the appropriate avenues if there is a reasonable suspicion of such guilt. Khalil was involved in pro-Palestinian protests last year, but protest on its own is not a crime. Revoking a green card is a lengthy legal process, not something warrantless immigration agents can do on a Saturday night whim.

The Trump administration has no intention of following due process in this case, though they may be forced to anyway. His defenders are largely citing the first amendment, and his right to free speech. This is the wrong angle as it misses the wider objective.

More likely, the US government chose someone who will not have widespread support in the general population once painted with the terrorist brush, without proof or prosecution, for a specific and wider purpose. Khalil’s arrest on the basis of an executive order is intended as a test case, a precedent, to lay the groundwork for American authorities to arrest anyone the President wishes to have arrested. It’s about systematically dismantling Americans’ cherished constitutional rights.

The Trump regime will arrest some of you in the middle of the night because you spoke your mind

It is not only the first amendment that is in danger, but the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments as well.

Let’s quickly examine the case through the lens of each:

The 1st amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress made no such law here; the President enacted an Executive Order circumventing the power of Congress to both abridge the freedom of speech and the right of the people to peaceably assemble, resulting in Khalil’s arrest by an immigration enforcement agency. This in itself does not appear to have any constitutional basis. The President’s powers are enumerated clearly in Article 2, section 2, of the Constitution, and, while he has the power of clemency, he does not have the power of arrest nor to unilaterally make laws.

The 4th amendment reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Having a federal immigration enforcement agency walk into a citizen and permanent resident’s private home, without a warrant, and seize a person is in patent violation of this amendment.

The 5th amendment reads:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Khalil was arrested on Saturday, and will only have a writ of habeas corpus today. The phrase in question here is “nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law", and without a warrant for his arrest nor the process for revocation of his status being followed, this basic constitutional right is clearly being violated.

The 6th amendment reads:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Here, Khalil was rushed off to Louisiana after being arrested in New York, and there’s no evidence of a prosecution being in the works in conjunction with his arrest.

I am neither a lawyer nor a constitutional expert, but my read on what is happening is that the purpose of Khalil’s arrest is to systematically undermine each of these fundamental rights for Americans. Establishing the ability to arbitrarily detain and deport citizens at the whim of the President is a critical step toward the authoritarian state that Trump and his Project 2025 team are trying to achieve.

Whether you agree or disagree with the subject or manner of Khalil’s protests at his university campus, even if the protests were found to have been illegal and genuinely linked to a terrorist organisation which itself has not been established, the manner in which the government is going about prosecuting it is not legal.

If the American government is allowed to get away with this arrest and deportation in the manner and on the basis on which they have done it, they will have the precedent needed to detain anyone, without a warrant or charges, for the simple act of opposing Trump’s dictatorship.

Should you believe this couldn’t impact you, take a moment to reflect on the post-war poem “first they came.”

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

First They Came For…