How to Describe the U.S. Environmental Laws and their Implications for Legal Processes: a Response to the INA ‘Comment on Green Card Holders’

Shapiro: As you know, many of your client’s supporters have claimed that if the administration can do this to a green card holder, they can do it to anyone, including a U.S. citizen. Do you believe that’s true?

Greer: Look, all of these laws use terms that can be interpreted expansively in courts and can be interpreted narrowly by courts. And part of any legal arguments that are made is how those words should be defined, how…

Shapiro: But you don’t know whether [the government is] arguing that by holding a sign or erecting a tent or, I don’t know, sending money or anything else specific. We tried to get an answer from the government. We have not been able to. I want to know if you have been able to.

The person said that it was Greer: No, you’ve seen the same things we have, basically. The publicly filed papers are what we have also seen. There is no evidence yet in this case. There hasn’t been a litigation where discovery was handed over. We know that the INA is trying to remove him and what the president and the secretary of state have said, but we don’t know about the motion to dismiss.

A person named Greer is talking. Yes. I don’t think they could do it to someone who was born in the U.S., with some more issues there. But certainly, this administration’s grumblings around challenging naturalized citizenship should certainly give us all pause as to how this administration wants to interpret certain areas of our law, and who those areas of the law apply to and who they don’t. And I think that, obviously, that would require a significant rollback of the rule of law and the standards that we have traditionally followed, the precedents that our courts have traditionally followed. I think we would be foolish to not take the threats very seriously in this day and age.

Greer: Well, I mean, part of that process is going to be heard in removal proceedings. The Immigration and Nationality Act is what people need to understand. This is not like a criminal statute. Mahmoud has not been charged with a crime. Therefore, he is not necessarily going to be heard on this particular issue in front of an Article III Court, like our Constitutional Court. This act is played out, in part, in immigration court. And so, the habeas petition that’s been filed is an effort to challenge various aspects of this particular provision of the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act] and its application to Mahmoud. But also, in an immigration context, the Department of State has certain obligations under that statute to provide certain information. The efforts will be to challenge both the statute itself and the use of it in this particular case.

Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, argued yesterday that people with a green card do not have the right to stay in the United States. The protests that your client participated in last year are described here by the way in which Rubio characterized them.

Amy Greer: I’ve obviously listened to that a number of times now and it just doesn’t make any sense to me, to be honest with you. I understand that [Rubio] has the bully pulpit here, but it doesn’t make any sense. We have in the United States the freedom of speech and that belongs to all people, all residents here in the United States, including lawful permanent residents. And I’m not attributing any of that speech necessarily to Mahmoud, but generally speaking, those statements mean [that] any time somebody in this country says something that this administration doesn’t like it renders them deportable. This country should not operate that way.

“You’re afraid to go to class because of these crazy people running around with their faces covered, screaming, and frightening things.” If you told us that’s what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in. Once you get in we’re going to kick you out.

Source: ‘Doesn’t make any sense’: Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyer on govt. efforts to deport him

A New U.S. Senator Hassan Sensitive to Pro-Palestinian Protests on College Campuses?

In an interview with Ari, the man said that his legal team was finally able to talk to him privately. He had to be granted a call with his attorneys. Greer said he is “doing the best he can in this moment.”

The Trump administration has accused the man of being close to the terrorist group Hamas. However, Khalil has not been charged with any crime.

In an interview with Morning Edition’s Michel Martin, Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar was unable to cite specific examples of Khalil’s conduct that would constitute such activity.

The search is not known if it has anything to do with the arrest of the pro-Palestinian protester, however he was held by immigration officials last Saturday. He was taken into custody by the authorities in front of his wife and told that he would be deported. The incident has caused protests and a legal battle.

The recent Columbia University graduate, who participated in pro-Palestinian protests on campus last year, is being held in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a detention center in Louisiana.

Pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses have been criticized by President Trump. Within days of taking office, he signed an executive order calling on the Department of Justice to “investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.”

The Trump administration’s targeting of higher education is all out against antisemitism: The case of Columbia University Apartheid Divest

Even after last week’s $400 million cuts, the government has said Columbia holds more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments. The Associated Press reports that last week’s cuts have already affected research studies at Columbia’s medical center, which relies on grants from the National Institutes of Health.

The Trump administration continues to call these protests, which are largely peaceful, antisemitic. Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student groups that organized the pro-Palestinian protests, include Jewish students and groups among its organizers and participants.

J Street is a Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy group based in D.C., and its president called the Trump administration’s targeting of higher education part of an all out assault on the standards of our democracy.

Two student residences were searched by immigration agents on Thursday night. They left without making any arrests or seizing any evidence, Gothamist, an NPR affiliate, reported.

The interim president of the school sent out a message to the student body saying that the officers served the university with warrants to enter non public areas so they could search two student rooms.

“Columbia continues to make every effort to ensure that our campus, students, faculty, and staff are safe,” she wrote. “Columbia is committed to upholding the law, and we expect city, state, and federal agencies to do the same.”

The Columbia students who helped negotiate on behalf of the campus protesters who wanted the school to withdraw from Israel were not the only ones.

Columbia should expel or suspend students who took part in demonstrations and campsites last spring according to the letter. Federal officials want the school to establish a new, formal antisemitism definition and policy and reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices to conform with federal law and policy.

A tumultuous week at Columbia as the Trump administration looks to have targets on the university. His administration has already canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the school, claiming that Columbia failed to police antisemitism on campus in the wake of pro-Palestinian demonstrations last spring. The arrest of a former student involved in the protests kept the school in the public eye.

A Columbia University spokesman said in an email to NPR that school officials are reviewing the letter. He said that they are committed to advancement of their mission, support of their students, and addressing all forms of discrimination on their campus.

This conflict over federal funding at Columbia is the latest flashpoint in a year full of controversy and unrest at the university. Here’s a rundown on the recent developments.

In the spring of last year, Columbia’s leadership clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters due to the war in Gaza. Columbia students established campsites on school grounds and took over the university building as they called for universities to remove their companies’ ties to Israel. Then-president Nemat Shafik stepped down over the summer after facing criticism for calling in police to break up the demonstrations; she’d also been grilled in Congressional hearings related to antisemitism on campus.