Over the weekend, ICE arrested one of the people involved in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protests, Mahmoud Khalil. It appears that they first stopped him with the intent of arresting him on a claim his student visa had been canceled; but even after they confirmed he was a Green Card holder, they detained him anyway.

On Saturday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers detained Mahmoud Khalil – a recent Columbia University graduate who helped lead the Gaza solidarity encampment – at his New York City home, an apartment building owned by the school, says advocates.

According to the advocates, at around 8:30 PM, Khalil and his wife – who is eight months pregnant – had just unlocked the door to their building when two plainclothes DHS agents pushed inside behind them. The agents allegedly did not identify themselves at first, instead asking for Khalil’s identity before detaining him.

The agents proceeded to tell Khalil’s wife that if she did not leave her husband and go to their apartment, they would arrest her too. The agents claimed that the State Department had revoked Khalil’s student visa, with one agent presenting what he claimed was a warrant on his cell phone. But Khalil, according to advocates, has a green card. Khalil’s wife went to their apartment to get the green card.

“He has a green card,” an agent apparently said on the phone, confused by the matter. But then after a moment, the agent claimed that the State Department had “revoked that too.”

Meanwhile, Khalil had been on the phone with his attorney, Amy Greer who was trying to intervene, asking why he was being detained, if they had a warrant, and explaining that Khalil was a green card holder. The attorney had circled back to demanding to see a warrant when the agents apparently instead hung up the phone.

Khalil was initially detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in downtown New York, pending an appearance before an immigration judge. Greer said they now do not know his precise whereabouts. They were initially told he was sent to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. But when his wife tried to visit him, she was told he wasn’t there. They have received reports that he may be transferred as far away as Louisiana.

This feels like another bone-headed move — like the firing of FEMA workers who were dutifully helping try to claw back funds already granted to NYC and the attempted investigation of an EPA worker who didn’t do what a Project Veritas video suggested — which the Administration will engage in further corruption to try to defend, making it and the authoritarianism far worse.

People will be fired.

Explanations will be ret-coned.

And either they’ll have to let Khalil free or — more likely — the Trump Administration will attempt to find cause, possibly criminal charges, to attempt to hold him longer (he has, indeed, been located in Jena, Louisiana). Trump will rely heavily on War on Terror precedents that allow the Executive to scream “terror” and with that detain even Green Card holders.

As we wait for better answers about what happened to Khalil, right wingers have taken to Xitter to wave their dicks around.

Newly elected right wing Congressman Brandon Gill, for example, suggested that “maybe we shouldn’t tolerate foreigners seizing control of US academic buildings (while including a screen cap that said Khalil was not in the group that occupied the building).

Gill is calling for the government to take action against foreigners seizing academic buildings even as South African immigrant Elon Musk takes over Department of Education, doing far more damage than protestors did.

And Stephen Miller insisted that the US would send any foreigners sympathizing with terrorism home.

Of course, one of Miller’s chief allies, Elon Musk, routinely platforms people sympathizing with far right terrorism — indeed, he played a direct role in ginning up riots in the UK and elsewhere.

The basis of this crackdown are two executive orders, admittedly focused on schools rather than government contractors, using Title VI funding as a means to dictate what otherwise First Amendment protected entities enjoy. (Note that Khalil’s arrest is inconsistent with Trump’s decision to strip $400 million in funds from Columbia, which would suggest the university, not Khalil did something wrong.)

But it nevertheless remains true that, to the extent that Xitter is protected speech (it is! just like university campuses!), Trump’s EO envisions intervening when government contractors don’t do enough to combat antisemitism.

And compared to Columbia, Elon Musk has been downright solicitous of antisemitism.