Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) is joining a chorus of Republican lawmakers in condemning Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and recent Columbia University graduate who organized peaceful protests on campus last year amid Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.
The Syria-born legal U.S. resident was abducted from his university-owned apartment Saturday by federal immigration agents who didn’t have a warrant or a crime to charge him with. Khalil is currently being held in a detention facility in Louisiana.
While most conservatives who support this apparent First Amendment breach appear content with calls to deport Khalil, Tuberville told Fox Business on Wednesday that he belongs in jail — along with “all” the other protesters supposedly disrupting education.
“The Democrats, basically, they don’t like our country anymore,” said Tuberville. “They just want to tear it down … Every Democrat that we work with up here, they’re gonna take this guy’s side and they’re gonna try to drive this narrative that he’s doing the right thing.”
“You know, we have two levels of education,” Tuberville added. “We have K-12 and we have higher ed. We’ve gotta treat both of them different, but when it comes to protesters, we gotta make sure we treat all of ‘em the same: Send ’em to jail.”
Immigration agents claimed after detaining Khalil that his green card will be revoked, but his attorney Amy Greer filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf Monday — prompting a district judge to rule against his deportation pending further legal action in his case.
President Donald Trump, who appears to call anyone belonging to his political opposition “Palestinian” these days, labeled Khalil a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” on his Truth Social platform Monday, despite there being zero evidence to support that claim.
More than a dozen progressive lawmakers published an open letter Tuesday demanding Khalil’s release, arguing that the Trump administration’s “illegal actions set a dangerous precedent” of stifling constitutional rights “to free speech and due process” in America.
“Free speech is great, but hateful, hate, free speech is not what we need in these universities,” Tuberville said Wednesday about anti-Israel protests across schools. “And they don’t need to be doing things that they’re preaching from Hamas, about antisemitism.”
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The First Amendment protects free speech whether people feel a “need” to hear ideas they disagree with or not. Numerous journalists have further questioned if there’s actual evidence that Khalil is antisemitic.
On Monday, his wife, who is eight months pregnant, made a plea for his release.
“I urge you to see Mahmoud through my eyes as a loving husband and the future father to our baby,” she said. “I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so he is here beside me, holding my hand in the delivery room as we welcome our first child into this world.”