Category: Opinion

Do you believe a real live lawyer or someone who did a law students homework for ten years.

There’s websites and lawyer wanna be’s who give baseless opinions on what they think the law is. Here’s Andrew McCarthy’s legal opinion on the Muslim terrorist who the government wants to deport.

McCarthy served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He led the terrorism prosecution against Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and eleven others. The defendants were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning a series of attacks against New York City landmarks. He also contributed to the prosecutions of terrorists who bombed United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

If a person is credibly accused of crimes like extortion, there is no legal prohibition against using speech as evidence of those crimes. And if a person is credibly accused of conspiracy, there is no legal bar against presenting the conspirators’ association with each other as evidence that they were joint participants in a criminal agreement.

Keep that in mind. We’re already hearing twaddle about the First Amendment from apologists for Khalil, the Syria-born former Columbia University student. He claims Palestinian heritage and the Trump administration is seeking to deport him over his role in campus uprisings driven by his support for Hamas – which has been formally designated a terrorist organization under U.S. law for nearly 30 years.

In a nutshell, the defense goes like this. Khalil is a lawful permanent resident alien (LPR), a green-card holder. As a matter of law, that makes him a U.S. person whose rights approximate those of an American citizen. Ergo, he cannot lawfully be expelled from the United States for constitutionally protected conduct – his association with other pro-Hamas student agitators and his speech on their behalf as a “mediator” in interactions with Columbia’s administration.

Now, there are a number of legal flaws in this defense (I’ve outlined them in this National Review essay). While the rights of LPRs are similar to those of American citizens, they are not identical. LPRs are still aliens. Federal immigration law has long provided that aliens can be deported over criminal conduct, terrorist support, and national security concerns – something that cannot be done to U.S. citizens.

But I want to take issue with the basic premise that Khalil’s conduct was nothing more than constitutionally protected speech and association for which no American would face legal consequences.

Khalil is not subject to deportation because he is a Muslim or because he is deeply opposed to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. His political speech and association with like-minded students (whether Muslims or non-Muslims) are not the point – even if he and his supporters would have you believe they’re the only point.

When he “mediated” on behalf of campus agitators – who had set up an illegal encampment blocking other students from tending to their studies and normal campus life, and who had illegally occupied and vandalized university buildings – he wasn’t engaged in political speech. He was pressuring the university to make concessions to the agitators’ pro-Hamas demands, with the understanding that if the administration did not capitulate, more and worse damage would be done on campus.

That’s not political speech. It’s extortion. American citizens who engaged in such behavior would not have a First Amendment defense. They’d likely face prosecution – and, in fact, dozens of the agitators were arrested in connection with these activities, and may still face other legal consequences.

Khalil does not present a profound constitutional controversy. His case is about the authority of the government, which is responsible for the security of its citizens, to deport aliens – even LPRs – who endanger us. That authority is etched in the Constitution, as well as the immigration and criminal laws of the United States.

The complete article can be found here.