
The Trump administration has fallen short of its promise to deport millions. The White House now seems focused on attention-grabbing arrests, including that of a Palestinian activist and leader of the Columbia student protests.
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Noel King
Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil faced a judge in a federal courtroom in Manhattan today, while outside protesters demanded his release. Khalil is a green card holder who was detained by ICE over the weekend. The Trump administration has lobbed some serious accusations at him.
Gabby Del Valle
Mahmoud Khalil was an individual who was given the privilege of coming to this country to study at one of our nation's finest universities and colleges, and he took advantage of that opportunity, of that privilege by siding with terrorists, Hamas terrorists, who have killed innocent men, women and.
Noel King
Children, but hasn't backed them up with any evidence. The attempted deportation has created some unlikely allies here, including conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who tweeted, there's almost no one I don't want to deport, but unless they've committed a crime, isn't this a violation of the First Amendment? On Today Explained, can the Trump administration kick out of the country a man who is charged with no crime and who is here legally? Coming up, the world's hardest problems can't wait Food Security Energy resilience the Digital divide I'm astro teller. For 15 years I've worked with inventors and engineers to tackle the seemingly impossible. In the Moonshot Podcast, we take you inside x Google's Moonshot factory, giving you unprecedented access to the messy, exhilarating journey of turning science fiction into reality. This is the Moonshot Podcast out now. Wherever you listen, you think you know what working on your wellness sounds like. But there's one thing that truly sounds like the best thing you can do for your overall wellness. Every great performance starts with a great night's sleep. And every great night's sleep starts with Natrol, the number one drug free sleep aid brand in America.
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Noel King
This is Today Explained.
Gabby Del Valle
My name is Gabby Del Valle. I'm a policy reporter at the Verge, where I cover immigration, privacy and the tech.
Noel King
Right, Gabby, what happened to Mahmoud Khalil last weekend?
Gabby Del Valle
So on Saturday night he was arrested by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations Division in his apartment. When the officers asked him to identify himself, they initially said that his student visa had been revoked. I believe at that point he and his wife had called his attorney, and his wife and his attorney were both saying he's not here on a student visa. He has a green card. His wife, who is eight months pregnant, got the green card and showed it to the HSI officers. That's the division of ICE that handles Homeland Security. And the officer said, well, the green card has been revoked too. Which to be clear, ICE doesn't have the authority to revoke a green card. But they arrested him. They took him first, I believe to a detention center in New York, then transferred him to a different detention center in New Jersey. When his wife went to visit him there on Sunday, soon is told that he wasn't there. And for a while, his wife and his attorney didn't know where he was until it was revealed that he had been transferred to a different ICE detention facility in rural Louisiana. And so while he was still detained in New York City 4:40am On Sunday, his attorney filed a habeas petition with the Southern District of New York. So this was before any of the transfers happened. And a federal judge on Monday ordered that he not be deported for now and set a court hearing for today.
Noel King
Who is this guy?
Gabby Del Valle
Mahmoud Khalil is a recent graduate of Columbia University School of International and Public affairs and a very prominent pro Palestine activist on campus.
Noel King
Free, free, free Palestine.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
Free, free, free Palestine.
Gabby Del Valle
So Starting in late 2023, Columbia University had a series of protests on campus where student activists were trying to get the university to divest from military contract that were based in or do business with the Israeli government. We demand divestment. We will not be moved unless by force. And those protests kind of culminated in the spring of 2024 with an encampment on Columbia University's lawn that the university ended up calling in the NYPD or allowing the NYPD to arrest students. The protests didn't end at the end of the academic year and have been ongoing.
Noel King
Disclose.
Gabby Del Valle
Go.
Noel King
We will not stop. We will not resist.
Gabby Del Valle
In the spring of 2024, when the encampments had, you know, sprung up and had been there for a while, he actually wasn't prominently involved in the encampments. And he spoke at a press conference where he said that he hadn't attended a ton of protests and he hadn't been doing a ton of interviews. He wasn't really in the public eye because he at that point was in the US On a student visa.
Noel King
I did not participate feeling that I will be arrested and ultimately deported from this country. And this is why a lot of the Palestinian students here, they feel very uncomfortable, very, very uncomfortable participating and protesting the genocide of their people. That's why we are very grateful for everyone on campus for protesting on our behalf.
Gabby Del Valle
But that wasn't to say he wasn't involved with this movement. He was one of the students involved with negotiating with the administration and trying to push the administration to divest while other students were doing, like, the encampment, the. More like, on the ground stuff. He was like in these meetings with the university administration.
Noel King
What will happen in court? Has he been charged with anything?
Gabby Del Valle
This is kind of a tricky thing. The judge that set that hearing is a federal judge in the Southern District of New York. And this is a hearing basically just requesting his release from immigration custody. That isn't going to affect the outcome of his immigration case, because ultimately, an immigration judge is the one who decides whether to order him deported or not. These are two different courts, different jurisdictions. So his. His hearing today was about whether he should remain in ICE custody or be let out, but it's not about whether he's going to be deported.
Noel King
When asked to explain this, what has the Trump administration said?
Gabby Del Valle
So a White House official told the Free Press that he has not been charged with a crime. There's no allegation that he's broken the law, but that he poses a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States. Under the Immigration and Nationality act, the Secretary of State has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals who serve or are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America. The official White House Instagram and Twitter accounts posted this picture of him saying, shalom, Mahmoud. And Trump himself has said there will be more. In a post on Truth Social, Trump called him a radical foreign pro Hamas student and said, this is the first arrest of many to come.
Noel King
What rights does Mahmoud Khalil have as a green card holder in the U.S.
Gabby Del Valle
So in most cases, people in deportation proceedings have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge. So despite what the government is saying, despite what the White House is saying, he cannot just be deported today or tomorrow or this week. He has to go before an immigration judge. And only an immigration judge can decide whether Mahmoud will be deported.
Noel King
And what case would the Trump administration have to make in order to get him deported? Like, how does this generally work?
Gabby Del Valle
It works differently, depending on what the grounds for deportability are. I'm going to give you a kind of unrelated example. Like if he were a green card holder and he had been charged with certain crimes, crimes including what is called crimes of moral turpitude or aggravated felonies, which are not all felonies, it's kind of a misnomer that could then trigger deportation proceedings. Or if he were an undocumented immigrant who was in the United States without, like, legal authorization, that could trigger deportation proceedings. This is a really unusual case. So because his deportability is being argued on this foreign policy ground, I believe the administration is going to have to prove that his activities in the United States are in some way a threat to national security or to the US's foreign policy interests. The question is what they're going to point to to prove that. Like, is it going to be his involvement in campus protests? And if so, is there then a First Amendment counter argument? Like, will his attorney be able to say he was not doing anything dangerous or anything threatening to national security, he was exercising his First Amendment rights. So will the administration then argue that he was doing something beyond speech is what we should be looking out for? As far as I know, he is not accused of any acts of violence of, like, the occupations, any of that. In fact, I emailed the NYPD asking if he had any kind of, like, charges or if he had been arrested in connection with any of those events, and I didn't receive a response. But when I was covering these protests last spring, there was no mention of him as one of the people who had been arrested.
Noel King
There were many students involved in these protests on college campuses and many students all across the country. Do we know why this one student was singled out?
Gabby Del Valle
I think there are a few different reasons why he was singled out. One of them is that he's an easier target than a lot of other students. His name is out there, his information is out there. The government knows that he's not a US citizen. There was a report in the foreword that some pro Israel activists had met with members of Congress, including Ted Cruz and John Fetterman, and had personally named Mahmoud as like, someone that the government should be looking at. And there are also a number of organizations that both before and after and since Trump's reelection, have kind of dedicated themselves to naming and shaming what they say are students on campus who are either promoting anti Semitism or in some cases, promoting terrorism. One of these organizations, Canary Mission, makes these kind of dossiers of pro Palestine activists on college campuses across America.
Noel King
Canary Mission simple interface allows you to easily explore profiles of radical individuals and organizations. It is your duty to ensure that.
Gabby Del Valle
Today'S radicals are not tomorrow's employees. Another, more recent one is the Heritage Foundation's Project Esther, which has kind of tried to weaponize the Canary Mission model to encourage retaliation against these students.
Noel King
Students that are engaged in pro terrorist activities should be deported The United States federal government itself should embark on a mission to deport such visiting students that.
Gabby Del Valle
Are expressing support for Hamas and other terrorist entities. And then there's another group, batar, which claims it made lists of students who are in the US on visas or otherwise non citizens and also claims that it showed that list to immigration authorities and has encouraged that these students be arrested and removed from the country.
Noel King
President Trump said on Truth Social the following we know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro terrorist, anti Semitic, anti American activity and the Trump administration will not tolerate it. It sounds like a threat. There will be more of this. Should we expect more of this?
Gabby Del Valle
We should absolutely expect more of this. Just days before Mahmoud was arrested, Axios reported that the State Department under Marco Rubio was using AI to identify students who were in the US on visas who had either been arrested at Pro Palestine Axum on campus or off campus, or who had posted like anti Israel content on social media. It claimed that there were no visas that were revoked under the Biden administration, which was proof that they were not taking this seriously and that this new administration would be taking this seriously. Reuters and the AAP have also reported that ICE has been looking for at least one other student on campus.
Noel King
Let me ask you lastly, what does this tell us about how President Trump and his administration are thinking about deportations, about how to do them, about how to utilize them, about who to target for deportation?
Gabby Del Valle
So when Trump was on the campaign trail, he promised mass deportations. And since then, you know, we have seen an increase in immigration enforcement. But despite what Trump says, despite what other White House officials say, you can't just instantly deport most non citizens because that process is often slow and bureaucratic. The Trump administration is kind of relying on these shock and awe tactics. You know, sending people to Guantanamo, high profile arrest of activists, sending migrants to Panama, these videos of Kristi Noem wearing bulletproof vests to arrest migrants in New York City. They're kind of relying on the public not realizing that an immigration arrest, while it may be the first step in a deportation, there's still a process that they have to adhere to.
Noel King
That was the Verges Gabby Del Valle. Coming up, President Trump promised mass deportations, not just high profile ones. How's that going?
Avishai Artsy
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Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
My full name is Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh And I'm an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
Noel King
It's been just under two months, Colleen, since President Trump took office. On the campaign trail, he promised mass deportations. We heard this again and again and again. We will use all necessary state, local, federal and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.
Gabby Del Valle
Gotta do it.
Noel King
Gotta do it. How's he doing with that campaign promise?
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
Right now, we don't have the current numbers of deportations from the government, but we do know that the Trump administration is quite frustrated with where deportations are at. We have some inferences that show that the deportations have not kept pace with what the Trump administration had hoped.
Noel King
According to three sources familiar with discussions at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ice and at the White House, President Trump is said to be angry that more people aren't being deported. It's just, you know, too low. And he's angry over the ICE numbers. His border czar, Tom Homan, we have.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
Heard that he is unhappy and has made his unhappiness known to the men.
Noel King
And women of ice that they want to get arrests and deportations of migrants higher.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
It's a type of infrastructure that can't be built overnight. And so right now, the deportations are just not keeping pace with what the Trump administration had hoped. To reach that goal of 1 million.
Noel King
Per year, all illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. Now, in the meantime, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ice, is more transparent perhaps, than I think a lot of people realize. They do have a color coded spreadsheet online. It shows us all of the detention data from this year. What does that spreadsheet tell us about detentions, if not deportations, since Donald Trump took office?
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
These spreadsheets from ICE offer us really concrete information about ICE detention. And then they also allow us to make some really great inferences into what might be happening with deportations, especially when we don't have that data. And so since Trump took office, we can see that the average number of people in detention has gone up. So in December, that last full month of the Biden administration, there are about 39,000 people in detention. And then in February, the first full month of the Trump administration, there were about 42,500. So a small increase, but an increase nonetheless. And then we can also see that more of the people who are in ICE detention right now are coming from ICE arrests rather than arrests conducted by Customs and Border Protection, which would typically be those arrested on the border. So under this administration, we are seeing an increase in arrests. And so the interior arrests that are happening by ICE are higher than under the Biden administration. What's much different about this administration versus the Biden administration and when Biden came into office is that the border looked a lot different.
Gabby Del Valle
President Biden taking executive action this afternoon that will restrict asylum processing along the U. S. Mexico border. President Biden announcing new steps to tackle the crisis at the border, expanding rules on who will be turned back.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
And under the Biden administration, the majority of the shares of people who are being deported were actually coming from through the border. So it wasn't that ICE stopped interior arrests altogether, but it was that those arrests were happening at a far slower rate than they are currently. But also the Trump administration came into a border that was much slower and much less busy than the Biden administration inherited. And so those two differences have somewhat skewed the numbers in that now the Trump administration is focusing more on the interior, but those deportations are a lot harder to carry out than when people have just recently crossed the border.
Noel King
So I wonder what we should make of this dynamic. The numbers of deportations are falling short of what Trump promised, but his administration is making a lot of news with these very high profile cases. A student connected to pro Palestinian protests last year has been detained by ice.
Gabby Del Valle
Striking scenes from the windows of this Panama hotel. Confined inside migrant men, women and children deported from the US by the Trump administration.
Noel King
We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.
Gabby Del Valle
Some of them are so bad, we.
Noel King
Don'T even trust the countries to hold them. What do you think we should take from that?
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
So having this large kind of public relations campaign around the arrests that are happening, the deportations that are being carried out, the previous use of military planes, for example.
Noel King
We shot this video from a dirt ridge outside Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. We could see about 80 men, women and children, recent arrivals in the US stepping off buses and stepping on to.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
Military transport jets, sending military to the border.
Noel King
Thousands of troops have been deployed to the border with Mexico.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
These are all part of a larger campaign to basically meet two critical needs of the Trump administration. To one, show the base of people that are supportive of this, that they are doing what they promised. They are intending to increase arrests and increase deportations. Whether or not the numbers are adding up, the intent is there. One of the very first actions by the Trump administration was to rescind something called the Sensitive Locations Memo, which did not allow ICE to go into schools.
Noel King
The Department of Homeland Security tossed out a policy that limited where immigration authority authorities can make arrests. Now federal agents can detain migrants at sensitive locations, including schools and churches.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
And so it certainly created a bit of a chilling effect.
Noel King
Today, federal agents detained and arrested people.
Gabby Del Valle
In Denver and the neighboring city of.
Noel King
Aurora, Colorado, breaking down doors and questioning people.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
Multiple communities across Chicago are feeling the.
Noel King
Impacts of what ICE is calling targeted operations.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
That can mean that people just aren't going to go to work, or they might not go to a doctor's appointment, or they might not send their kids to school that day.
Noel King
I have calls from schoolteachers and parents who are afraid to send their children to school.
Gabby Del Valle
It's already scaring people.
Noel King
My guess would be that the Trump administration at some point will start to take flak because the number of deportations that it promised is not matching the reality. Are you seeing new strategies by this administration to kind of get deportations numbers up?
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
Part of the deportation system is also the detention system. The Trump administration has made a lot of efforts to essentially bend the US Government towards trying to increase the resources across detentions and deportation. And so that means that they're deputizing all different areas of the government, including ones that had never been working on immigration before, but also calling agents from Department of State, from dea, from atf, from US Marshals and asking people to be reallocated to work on immigration enforcement. And we're also seeing that they are targeting certain areas that work with immigrants. So, for example, the Trump administration has launched several investigations into so called sanctuary cities, which has resulted in a litany of different lawsuits.
Noel King
Sanctuary city mayors from Boston, New York City, Denver and Chicago were taken to task by House Republicans for their dangerous policies during this contentious hearing. The false narrative is that immigrants in general are criminals or immigrants in general cause all sorts of danger and harm. That is actually what is undermining safety in our communities.
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
We're also seeing that the Trump administration is trying to compel states and localities to use their own law enforcement agencies to also carry out immigration enforcement. So the Texas National Guard has signed a memorandum of understanding with DHS so that Texas National Guard can now kind of carry out the functions of an immigration enforcement officer where they previously couldn't. So there's a lot of different areas in which they're trying to sort of bend various aspects of both the US Government, but also state resources, all towards this singular goal of carrying out mass deportations.
Noel King
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute today's show was produced by Avishai Artsy and Gabrielle Burbet. Amina Elsadi is our editor, Laura Bullard and Amanda Llewellyn check the facts and Patrick Boyd and Andrea, Kristin's daughter, are our engineers. I'm Noel King. It's TODAY explained it's been reported that one in four people experience sensory sensitivities, making everyday experiences like a trip to the dentist especially difficult. In fact, 26% of sensory sensitive individuals avoid dental visits entirely. In Sensory Overload, a new documentary produced as part of Sensodyne's Sensory Inclusion Initiative, we follow individuals navigating a world not built in for them, where bright lights, loud sounds and unexpected touches can turn routine moments into overwhelming challenges. Burnett Grant, for example, has spent their life masking discomfort in workplaces that don't accommodate neurodivergence. I've only had two full time jobs where I felt safe, they share. This is why they're advocating for change through deeply personal stories like Burnett's, Sensory Overload highlights the urgent need for spaces, dental offices and beyond that embrace sensory inclusion because true inclusion requires action with environments where everyone feels safe. Watch Sensory Overload now streaming on Hulu. Support for this show comes from Brex.
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Podcast Summary: "Deporting Mahmoud Khalil" – Today, Explained by Vox
Release Date: March 12, 2025
Introduction
In the March 12, 2025 episode of Today, Explained, Vox hosts Sean Rameswaram and Noel King delve into the contentious case of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder facing deportation under the Trump administration. The episode unpacks the legal complexities, political motivations, and broader implications of Khalil's detention, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the current immigration landscape in the United States.
Mahmoud Khalil's Case
Background and Arrest
Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, has emerged as a focal point in the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement strategy. Detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations Division over the weekend, Khalil's arrest has sparked significant controversy.
At [00:00], Noel King introduces the case:
"Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil faced a judge in a federal courtroom in Manhattan today, while outside protesters demanded his release."
Gabby Del Valle provides further context, stating at [00:19]:
"Mahmoud Khalil was an individual who was given the privilege of coming to this country to study at one of our nation's finest universities and colleges, and he took advantage of that opportunity, of that privilege by siding with terrorists, Hamas terrorists, who have killed innocent men, women and children."
However, she adds at [00:38],
"But hasn't backed them up with any evidence."
Legal Proceedings
Detention and Legal Status
Khalil's detention process has been fraught with inconsistencies and procedural ambiguities. Initially detained on the grounds that his student visa had been revoked—a claim ICE lacks authority to make for green card holders—Khalil was transferred from a New York detention center to a rural facility in Louisiana without proper notification to his family or attorney.
At [02:26], Gabby Del Valle outlines the legal missteps:
"ICE doesn't have the authority to revoke a green card. But they arrested him... when his wife went to visit him there on Sunday, was told that he wasn't there."
Furthermore, Khalil's attorney filed a habeas petition early Sunday, leading a federal judge on Monday to temporarily halt his deportation and schedule a court hearing.
Trump Administration's Stance and Actions
Accusations and Policy Enforcement
The Trump administration has labeled Khalil a security threat despite the absence of criminal charges. A White House official explained at [06:35]:
"There's no allegation that he's broken the law, but that he poses a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States."
President Trump amplified these sentiments on his platform, Truth Social, declaring at [07:28]:
"Trump called him a radical foreign pro Hamas student and said, this is the first arrest of many to come."
The administration leverages the Immigration and Nationality Act, allowing the Secretary of State to revoke visas or green cards for individuals deemed adversarial to U.S. interests. However, this broad authority raises significant legal and constitutional questions, particularly concerning the First Amendment rights of individuals like Khalil.
Immigration Enforcement Under Trump vs. Biden
Shift in Enforcement Strategies
Under the Biden administration, immigration enforcement primarily focused on border apprehensions. In contrast, the Trump administration has intensified interior arrests, targeting individuals who may not have crossed the border recently but are accused of undermining U.S. interests.
At [20:42], Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh from the Migration Policy Institute explains:
"Under the Biden administration, the majority of the people being deported were actually coming through the border. So the Trump administration is focusing more on the interior."
This shift has led to an increase in ICE detainees from interior arrests, complicating the deportation process and making it more challenging to meet the administration's ambitious targets of mass deportations.
Expert Analysis by Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh
Challenges and Political Motivations
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh provides an in-depth analysis of the Trump administration's immigration policies. She notes the administration's frustration with stagnant deportation numbers, as highlighted at [18:12]:
"President Trump is said to be angry that more people aren't being deported. It's just, you know, too low."
Kavanaugh attributes the administration's continued focus on high-profile cases like Khalil's to a broader public relations strategy aimed at demonstrating commitment to campaign promises. She explains at [22:07]:
"These are all part of a larger campaign to basically meet two critical needs of the Trump administration. To one, show the base of people that are supportive of this, that they are doing what they promised."
Additionally, the administration has employed various strategies to bolster immigration enforcement, including:
Utilizing Diverse Government Agencies: Deputizing departments like State, DEA, ATF, and U.S. Marshals to assist ICE, thereby expanding the enforcement apparatus.
Targeting Sanctuary Cities: Launching investigations and lawsuits against cities like Boston, New York City, Denver, and Chicago for their sanctuary policies, aiming to compel local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Deploying the National Guard: Enlisting state military forces, such as the Texas National Guard, to support border and interior enforcement operations, as stated at [25:15].
Kavanaugh also highlights the chilling effect these aggressive tactics have on immigrant communities, with increased fear and reluctance to engage with public services out of fear of detention.
Conclusion
The case of Mahmoud Khalil epitomizes the Trump administration's intensified and controversial approach to immigration enforcement. While high-profile arrests serve as symbolic victories for the administration's hardline stance, practical challenges and systemic barriers hinder the fulfillment of mass deportation promises. As Khalil awaits his immigration hearing, the broader implications of such aggressive policies continue to spark debate over legal rights, national security, and humanitarian considerations in the United States' immigration framework.
Notable Quotes:
Gabby Del Valle at [00:19]:
"Mahmoud Khalil was an individual who was given the privilege of coming to this country to study... by siding with terrorists, Hamas terrorists..."
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh at [18:31]:
"It's a type of infrastructure that can't be built overnight. And so right now, the deportations are just not keeping pace with what the Trump administration had hoped."
Colleen Putzel Kavanaugh at [25:38]:
"We're also seeing that the Trump administration is trying to compel states and localities to use their own law enforcement agencies to also carry out immigration enforcement."
Key Takeaways:
For those interested in the intersection of immigration policy, legal rights, and political strategy, this episode provides a nuanced and thorough exploration of these pressing issues.