The Trump administration said on Tuesday that Columbia University was “refusing to help” the Department of Homeland Security identify people for arrest on campus, after immigration authorities detained a prominent Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate over the weekend.
The Trump White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday the administration had given the university names of multiple individuals it accused of “pro-Hamas activity”, reiterating the administration’s intention to deport activists associated with pro-Palestinian protests.
“Columbia University has been given the names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity, and they are refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus,” Leavitt said in a press briefing. “And as the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that.”
You’re using a curious definition of “break the law.”
Nothing that is happening to their students is legal. They have the option to say “As of today, we will not cooperate in any form with these particular federal authorities, because they are clearly breaking American law and endangering the safety of people who are in our care.” That would be kind of a bare minimum. If they wanted to use some of that staggering pile of money at their disposal to hire armed security, backed by high-paid lawyers to make sure that they had some legal backing for their use of force against warrantless intrusions, that would be nice too. And also, to sic those same lawyers on the authorities that have Khalil imprisoned, at least try to put some pressure on so he doesn’t just slip away.
There are a lot of municipalities that have that kind of policy against cooperating with ICE, for exactly that reason. Some of their leaders were just summoned to congress to explain themselves, and apparently did so in a pretty vigorous fashion. Is that safe for them? Not really, in the current climate. They did it anyway.
Sometimes shit hits the fan, man. If someone comes in your house and starts snatching your family members, what are you supposed to do? “Oh I can’t stop him, that would be violent”?
Starting to resist illegal violence against you is necessary, even if it’s not safe. Failing to resist is infinitely less safe.
Yes, I know it’s easy for me to sit here at my computer and type all bravely about how they should take a stand when they have a bunch of stuff to lose. Typing is more than they did. They couldn’t even muster the stones to type out a direct statement about how it’s wrong to snatch students and put them in indefinite detention when they haven’t done anything. So, like I said, fuck 'em.
Khalil had some stuff to lose too, and he still tried to fight for the rights of vulnerable people. Go tell his pregnant wife that it would be better for the school/student that they don’t try to make too many waves about what happened / what is happening to him.