Trump Admin Is Trying To Deport Mahmoud Khalil for Speech That’s ‘Contrary’ to US Foreign Policy

The Trump administration is trying to deport 30-year-old Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who was arrested by ICE agents over the weekend, for activity that is “contrary” to US foreign policy based on his involvement in protests critical of Israel’s war on Gaza at Columbia University.

…

At a White House press conference on Tuesday, Press Secretary Karolin Leavitt claimed Secretary of State Marco Rubio has the right to revoke the visa or green card of individuals who “are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

Related:

Immigration in Post-War America

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter Act)

Immigration policy wasn’t closely examined again until after WWII. New legislation was introduced in 1952 by Democrats Pat McCarran and Francis Walter. This McCarran-Walter Act was officially named the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and had several provisions. Perhaps most importantly, the Act continued the quota system put in place in 1924, this time basing quotas on the 1920 census. These quotas continued preferences for immigrants from Northern and Western European nations while greatly limiting immigrants from other parts of the world. The 1952 Act also encouraged immigrants who had special skills or who were relatives of American citizens.

The 1952 bill was passed during a time of anxiety in the United States. Since the end of WWII, the US had already become engaged in an ideological conflict with the Soviet Union. By 1952, Joseph McCarthy had launched his crusade against communists in the US government, Truman’s loyalty program had been in effect for five years, and Truman and McCarran had already sparred with each other over the 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act. An essential goal of the proposed immigration law was to ensure that un-American or subversive individuals did not enter the United States. Under this new law, all immigrants would be screened for past participation in communist organizations.

State Department plan to deport ‘pro-Hamas’ students relies on a 1952 law that targeted Jews

The 1952 law, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, codified immigration restrictions of “subversives” and communists. The act’s quotas and ideological litmus test were widely understood at the time to target Eastern European Jewish Holocaust survivors suspected of being Soviet agents.

Nevada Senator Patrick McCarran, the law’s architect, used the “canard that Jews are disruptors” and “subversive rats that need to be kept out,” but with a new Cold War twist of portraying Jewish immigrants as Soviet agents, according to David Nasaw, professor emeritus at CUNY Graduate Center.

Nasaw, who wrote the 2020 book The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons From World War to Cold War, notes this was one of several instances of post-war immigration legislation that favored German, Irish, and English immigrants while limiting immigration from Poland, where the Jews who survived World War II did so by fleeing into the Soviet Union or being liberated by the Red Army.

Jewish politicians fought the 1952 legislation, and President Truman vetoed it. However, Congress overturned it with a two-thirds vote in both houses. The bill continued policies that made it almost impossible for Polish Jewish survivors to emigrate to the United States. Those who did, including Jared Kushner’s family, were forced to present themselves as German to American authorities.

In a 1952 edition of The New York Times, then-Anti-Defamation League president Benjamin Epstein was quoted as saying that immigration regulations like the McCarran law were “examples of the worst kind of legislation, discriminatory and abusive of American concepts and ideals.”

State Department To Use AI To Revoke Visas of Students Who ‘Appear Pro-Hamas’