Statement of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA) on the Violations of First Amendment and Due Process Rights by the Federal Administration

At the direction of the current Federal Administration, agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil and threatened to revoke his green card based on his actions organizing protests on the campus of Columbia University.

This is only one of the many violations of First Amendment and due process rights that we have seen from the Federal Administration over the last few weeks. Attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), the ability of the press to cover the White House, removal of scientific articles from government websites for using certain terms (for instance, those referencing LGBTQ+ health issues), and more have shocked our sensibilities as a nation.

These blatant violations of our Constitution's First Amendment rights should alarm every American who supports civil liberties and the rule of law. These actions by the Federal Administration are designed to have a chilling effect on lawful dissent and protest. It is, in short, an authoritarian test case to normalize silencing critics. Americans who believe in free speech as an unshakable pillar of American democracy cannot stand idly by.

But, seemingly to test us even further, the Khalil case involved an immigrant who was arrested for pro-Palestinian activities. It is almost as if the Federal Administration in this instance is taunting us in a cruelly constructed game of "what matters to you more – the subject matter, your desire to protect immigrants, or your precious First Amendment rights?"

Let’s pull apart these threads. Immigrants, just like anyone living in America, are entitled to speak their minds about any issue. Period. There is no First Amendment loophole because of where you were born or your citizenship status. Immigrants make our country stronger and are a linchpin of our economy. Chilling their right to speak out when they are in this country is downright un-American. And, for many immigrants fleeing repressive regimes, this is what they thought they left behind in their former countries.

In the situation involving Khalil, the Federal Administration wants us to believe that this action was done to protect the Jewish community from antisemitism. Regardless of whether we each personally think that his actions were grounded in antisemitism, that’s what the Administration wants us to assume. There is a term for this – smokescreen antisemitism – in which accusing someone of antisemitism is used as cover for taking actions that the entity in power wants to take anyway, but says they are doing it to protect Jews. The most twisted part is that these actions usually, in the end, are harmful to the Jewish community. And, we do know that suppressing free speech is harmful to the Jewish community.

As Jewish Americans with a moral compass and a clear understanding of history, we know that we cannot allow our society to normalize these erosions of civil liberties, the rule of law, and democracy itself. We cannot allow it to become acceptable to apprehend people because someone in power simply does not like what they have to say. And we cannot let them do it in our name, seemingly signaling to the rest of the country that Jews are willing to step back on our full-throated support of free speech and due process rights depending on the content of the speech, thereby separating ourselves from other Americans. We have seen this attempt to isolate Jews and their beliefs before, and it does not end well.

Jewish people - and all minority and marginalized populations - fare best in pluralistic societies in which diversity and different perspectives are sources of strength and are protected by robust civil liberties. We cannot let the Federal Administration eviscerate the very foundation of our country – our right to believe what we want, to speak out about those beliefs, and debate about those beliefs in public. No matter if we disagree about the content of the speech, we are all safer when diversity of opinion is tolerated then when it is suppressed.

This intentional effort by the Federal Administration to subvert civil liberties and the rule of law may start with an immigrant with a green card, or an attack on scientific research, or clamping down on the press, but it will not end there. All Americans who value free speech and due process have a responsibility to be vigilant, stand up, and speak out.