Monday April 14: Troubling Development
Our government weaponizes immigration law to suppress dissent of a foreign nation
Sometimes it’s reassuring to know that no matter where you come from or what you believe, you too can be deported from the US for the simple crime of criticizing an apartheid state actively conducting a genocide.
An immigration judge down in Louisiana (some guy named Jamee who wears a robe to work) decided that Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can in fact be forced out of the country as a ‘national security risk’. The judge ruled on Friday that Khalil’s continued presence in this country posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences”, which is as absurd as it is dangerous. We’re well beyond the point of seeing activists and protesters arrested and imprisoned on trumped-up charges, now we’re at the point in the story where corrupt judges and bureaucrats are punishing them for exercising their first amendment rights.
Students like Mahmoud from Muslim-majority countries across Asia and Africa are having their visas revoked with little warning and little to no explanation. By this point, hundreds of students at universities across the country have seen changes to their immigration status and many are being blocked from completing their degrees. And all for what? Because these students had the courage to point out mass murder and say, “Hey, that’s pretty bad, somebody should really do something about that”.
Separately, but relatedly, a teenager from New Jersey named Amer Rabee was murdered by the apartheid state in Palestine last week, following a tragic rubric previously set by Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and Shireen Abu Akleh and Rachel Corrie, among others. Somehow I doubt that New Jersey senator Cory Booker will do another 25 hour speech on the senate floor for a child and a constituent of his that was murdered by a foreign government. Not only can we be punished for protesting against the murderous genocidaires, but our elected representatives will actively ignore our deaths if they come at the hands of said genocidaires.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that being Israeli, much like supporting apartheid, is and has always been a choice. It is opt-in. Nobody has to be Israeli, despite the continued and pointless insistence by our politicians that they have a right to exist. The fact is, the apartheid state of Israel does exist, a nation state whose very existence is predicated on brutal occupation and inequality. So many of these people could simply move, they could choose to identify as whatever flavor of European their settler ancestors were. At any point they could reject the malignancy of this national identity entirely. But they don’t.
Side Items
Pardoning Corporations: With each passing week, President Donny Trump is doing things that no other president has done before…and I certainly don’t mean that in a good way. In late March, Trump broke new authoritarian ground as he issued a presidential pardon to a corporation. The company in question was a cryptocurrency exchange sentenced to a $100 million fine for violating an anti-money laundering law. Trump’s pardon of HDR Global Trading, the owner and operator of crypto exchange BitMEX, was issued at the same time as pardons for three of the company’s co-founders and one of its employees. This audacious move is likely to trigger a lobbying frenzy for any corporation that has ever faced federal enforcement, so it’ll be a race to the bottom
Dominican Disaster: Early last week a tragic roof collapse at a popular club in the Dominican Republic resulted in the deaths of over 200 people. The Jet Set club operated for nearly 50 years and was popular with both locals and tourists, hosting a well-known Monday night merengue party. Authorities are still looking for explanations on why and how this devastating tragedy occurred, but the impact has been felt across the island nation
Tradition Unlike Any Other: I’ll preface by saying this; I do not particularly care about golf, a sport dominated by the wealthy and catering to the overprivileged. With that being said, this weekend was the annual Masters tournament, taking place down in Georgia and attended by an endless sea of Caucasians. The big news from this weekend was Northern Irishman Rory McIlory finally taking home the coveted green jacket after over a decade of failed attempts. I consulted with several local golf experts (some guys I went to high school with) who explained that McIlroy had developed something of a reputation for choking, a tradition he nearly continued this weekend. Somehow he persevered this time, and despite squandering a lead on the final day of the tournament, he managed to win in a playoff and completed a career Grand Slam, something only six other golfers have ever done. Mention this information in front of your white boss and watch his eyes light up