Society / March 12, 2025
We Are Asking the Wrong Questions About Mahmoud Khalil’s Arrest

The only relevant question is not “How can the government do this?” It is “How can we who oppose this fascist regime?”

Elie Mystal

On Saturday night, student activist Mahmoud Khalil was abducted by the United States government. Federal agents, acting under the authority granted to them by the President of the United States, unlawfully entered Khalil’s apartment building as he was coming home. They informed Khalil that his green card had been revoked without a hearing, told him he was under arrest and would soon be deported, and threatened his 8-months-pregnant, US-citizen wife with unlawful arrest if she complained.

They then shipped Khalil to a for-profit detention camp in Jena, Louisiana. The facility, called the LaSalle Detention Center, is already well known for its human rights abuses, which include beatings, tear-gassing, and the pepper-spraying of children. It’s run by the publicly traded GEO Group, which closed at $22.92 a share on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, in case anybody would like to ask their investment managers if their portfolios support fascism.

Khalil is there now, we believe, but still in the country, thanks to a ruling by US District Judge Jesse Furman (an Obama appointee), who temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation.

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