How Trump’s Targeting of Immigrants With Legal Status Departs From the Norm

Of note (as does virtually everything the Trump administration does):

…Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old green card holder who was detained last week and transferred from New York to a facility in Louisiana, is one of the most high-profile immigration detainees in custody. President Trump said in social media this week that Khalil’s detention is related to his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, where he earned a master’s degree last year.

Khalil’s legal team has described his arrest — as a permanent legal resident — as unprecedented, while some legal bloggers and journalists have placed it in a larger context of what they describe as politically-motivated enforcement targeting pro-Palestinian activists. Immigration researcher and Syracuse University professor Austin Kocher explained this week that both understandings are, in fact, correct.

On the one hand, “green card holders and even U.S. citizens are arrested and detained by immigration authorities more often than most people are aware,” and a number of those arrests have involved Palestinian activists. On the other hand, Kocher writes, use of “the specific law that might allow the U.S. to deport Mahmoud is extraordinarily rare in recent history.”

The law that Kocher is referring to is an element of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was last used in 1995, according to The New York Times. The Trump administration has argued the provision allows the Secretary of State to deport permanent legal residents if they represent a threat to national security. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a Department of Homeland Security statement claiming that Khalil satisfied that criteria by having “led activities aligned to Hamas,” during the protests. The White House cited unreleased “intelligence” to defend the claim, the New York Post reported.

Some legal scholars have argued this law was struck down as unconstitutional in 1996 by a federal district court after the Clinton administration targeted a Mexican national for deportation. That decision was later reversed by an appeals court on procedural grounds, without weighing in on the merits of the case.

In a twist of irony, the judge behind that district court decision was Maryanne Trump Barry — the president’s late older sister.

“The issue,” Barry wrote, “is whether an alien who is in this country legally can, merely because he is here, have his liberty restrained and be forcibly removed to a specific country in the unfettered discretion of the Secretary of State and without any meaningful opportunity to be heard. The answer is a ringing ‘no.’”

Source: How Trump’s Targeting of Immigrants With Legal Status Departs From the Norm