Facing a deadline from an immigration judge to turn over evidence for its attempted deportation of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, the federal government has instead submitted a brief memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing the Trump administration’s authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country damages U.S. foreign policy interests.
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Rather, Rubio wrote Khalil could be expelled for his beliefs.
He said that while Khalil’s activities were “otherwise lawful,” letting him remain in the country would undermine “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”
Pressed for evidence against Mahmoud Khalil, government cites its power to deport people for beliefs
The U.S. government has submitted a two-page memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio as its main evidence in its deportation case against Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil.
Yunseo Chung was seven when she came to America. By twenty, she had a Columbia University ID, a green card, and a head full of ideas about democracy, civil rights, and peaceful protest.
Big mistake.
In March 2025, Yunseo joined a sit-in at Barnard College. No broken windows. No masks. No Molotovs. Just students in chairs, arms linked, holding signs about Palestine and Columbia’s complicity.
Four days later, ICE showed up.
They knocked on her parents’ door first. Then her dorm. They carried a “harboring” warrant — a flimsy legal fig leaf once used for smugglers, now rebranded for students who sit too still and speak too clearly. DHS called her a “foreign policy threat.”
Translation: she embarrassed them.
No hearing. No charges. Just a green card marked for deletion. She went underground. Lawyers stepped in. A federal judge issued a restraining order, temporarily blocking her arrest and demanding answers.
The government offered none. Just silence and red tape.
Yunseo wasn’t undocumented. She wasn’t violent. She was a straight-A student who took the First Amendment seriously — until it kicked her in the teeth.
She’s still in hiding. Still waiting.
Because when you protest injustice in Trump’s America, they don’t just ignore you.
They hunt you.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
Yunseo Chung was seven when she came to America. By twenty, she had a Columbia University ID, a green card, and a head full of ideas about democracy, civil rights, and peaceful protest. Big mistake.…
Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested outside his naturalization interview in Vermont. He was on track to become a U.S. citizen. ICE decided otherwise.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
THE ARCHITECTS OF ERASURE Donald Trump returned to power promising the largest deportation campaign in American history. That wasn’t bluster. It was policy. He brought Kristi Noem into the cabinet…
Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian PhD student at the University of Alabama, was picked up by ICE without charge. No one will say why. He’s still gone.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
THE ARCHITECTS OF ERASURE Donald Trump returned to power promising the largest deportation campaign in American history. That wasn’t bluster. It was policy. He brought Kristi Noem into the cabinet…
Rümeysa Öztürk was a Fulbright scholar at Tufts University. ICE agents in masks and hoodies grabbed her off the street, shoved her into an unmarked car, and vanished her into a Louisiana detention center. Her crime? Writing an op-ed critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
THE ARCHITECTS OF ERASURE Donald Trump returned to power promising the largest deportation campaign in American history. That wasn’t bluster. It was policy. He brought Kristi Noem into the cabinet…
Kseniia Petrova, a Russian scientist at Harvard, was deported over a technicality involving frog embryo samples. When she said she feared political persecution in Russia, they shrugged and shackled her anyway.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
THE ARCHITECTS OF ERASURE Donald Trump returned to power promising the largest deportation campaign in American history. That wasn’t bluster. It was policy. He brought Kristi Noem into the cabinet…
Momodou Taal, a British-Gambian PhD student at Cornell, was told to surrender himself or be hunted. His activism cost him his place in the country. He left voluntarily. That’s what exile looks like now.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
THE ARCHITECTS OF ERASURE Donald Trump returned to power promising the largest deportation campaign in American history. That wasn’t bluster. It was policy. He brought Kristi Noem into the cabinet…
Jessica Brösche, a German tourist, spent eight days in solitary confinement for a visa mix-up. She described her experience as a “horror film.” This is what awaits people who land on the wrong day, at the wrong airport, with the wrong stamp.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
THE ARCHITECTS OF ERASURE Donald Trump returned to power promising the largest deportation campaign in American history. That wasn’t bluster. It was policy. He brought Kristi Noem into the cabinet…
Andry Hernández Romero, a Venezuelan asylum seeker, was deported for having religious tattoos that DHS claimed were gang-related. He came here to escape persecution. We handed him over to it.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
THE ARCHITECTS OF ERASURE Donald Trump returned to power promising the largest deportation campaign in American history. That wasn’t bluster. It was policy. He brought Kristi Noem into the cabinet…
Francisco García Casique, a barber from Venezuela, was seen in a propaganda video — chained and frog-marched into El Salvador’s mega-prison system. That’s how his family found out where he was.
Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge
THE ARCHITECTS OF ERASURE Donald Trump returned to power promising the largest deportation campaign in American history. That wasn’t bluster. It was policy. He brought Kristi Noem into the cabinet…
