Starting this week, I once again have the privilege of teaching law students about the First Amendment, a subject in which Americans rightly take great pride. But this term, the job will feel very different. I am in the United States on a green card, and recent events suggest that I should be careful in what I say—perhaps even about free speech.
As I prepare my lecture notes, the Trump administration is working to deport immigrants, including green-card holders, for what appears to be nothing more than the expression of political views with which the government disagrees. These actions are chilling. They also make it difficult to work out how to teach cases that boldly proclaim this country is committed to a vision of free speech that, right now, feels very far away.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has been—is there any other way to describe it?—rounding up dissidents. Government agents whisked one student off the street into an unmarked car, apparently for the thought crime of co-authoring an op-ed about Israel and Gaza in a student newspaper—an article that likely reached only a modest audience until the government made it grounds for detention. The administration arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate, on his way home from dinner, in front of his pregnant wife, not for any crime but for his participation in ...
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