Mahmoud Khalil is a recent graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of International Affairs. Mahmoud has stood with the people of Gaza against the merciless genocide perpetrated by Israel, with the full support of the U.S. He has negotiated with protestors and administrators at Columbia at different times.

On March 8, Mahmoud Khalil was illegally arrested and threatened with deportation for peacefully expressing his political opinions—a right that is supposed to be fully protected by the U.S. Constitution. This is a dangerous outrage. (Yes, constitutional protections apply to all people, regardless of immigration status. And Mahmoud Khalil is a legal resident—a green card holder—on top of that!)

The subsequent kidnapping of Mahmoud to a “detention facility”—that is, a prison—in Louisiana: a further outrage. The fact that this was publicly orchestrated and bragged about by Secretary of State Marco Rubio along with a disgusting campaign of slander of Mahmoud Khalil made it still worse. And Donald Trump’s statement that Mahmoud will be the first “of many to come” is not just an outrage… it is an ominous threat.

As a matter of simple justice, Mahmoud must be freed. He has literally committed no crime and is not charged with one. The stakes for Mahmoud and his eight-months-pregnant wife are high indeed. But it doesn’t stop there. 

If this is allowed to go down, it will be a leap on a road that is speeding toward all-out FASCISM.

As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian said recently, “Fascism, as represented by Donald Trump, is a white supremacist, male supremacist, anti-LGBT, immigrant-hating, aggressively environment-destroying, anti-scientific, religious fundamentalist fanaticism, determined to use the power of the government to forcibly compel obedience to its dangerous and destructive lunacy, and to viciously persecute those who oppose or resist.” 

There is no conceivable morally valid reason for standing aside. 

Shrugging your shoulders and sitting on the sidelines in the face of this will only guarantee that more of the same will happen. That dissent will be criminalized, academic freedom crushed, innocent people seized in the middle of the night—more quickly and with more viciousness. That rights will shrivel and that people will learn to shut their mouths out of fear—or else have their mouths shut for them. That the door will be open to unleash the full destructiveness of Trump’s MAGA fascism.

You may differ with Mahmoud about the content of the protest he was part of, but if you are a decent person who does not want to see the right to dissent criminalized, you cannot stand aside. 

It is morally right, and urgently needed, for every decent person to demand:

MAHMOUD KAHLIL MUST BE FREED!

IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA!

THE TRUMP/MAGA FASCIST REGIME MUST GO!

By acting together and taking a stand with Mahmoud, there is the real-world hope and possibility that more of the millions of people who hate this MAGA fascism will take notice and take heart, find their conscience and courage… and (in the words of A Call to Conscience… A Call to Act from RefuseFascism.org) “fill the streets and town squares in rising numbers—not stopping until we become millions—not relenting until this regime is no longer able to implement its program.”

It has happened before. It can happen again—here. 

It depends on YOU.