Rubio: ‘We’re Going To Keep Doing It’
Rubio’s comments came during an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” where he was responding to the left’s criticism of the Trump administration for revoking Mahmoud Khalil’s green card. Khalil has been detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is facing deportation for orchestrating anti-Israel protests on Columbia University’s campus, which have involved the harassment of innocent Jewish students, violent attacks on individuals including security officers, blocking other students from attending classes, and seizing university buildings.
Rubio was asked by “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan about a Wall Street Journal editorial piece attacking the Trump administration, claiming that the administration “needs to be careful that it is targeting real promoters of terrorism, and not breaking the great promise of a green card by deporting anyone with controversial political views.”
The Secretary of State dismissed these criticisms, highlighting the fact that all visa card holders are required to abide by American laws and policies.
“When you apply to enter the United States and you get a visa, you are a guest,” Rubio explained. “And in it, you have to make certain assertations and if you tell us when you apply for a visa, ‘I’m coming to the US to participate in pro-Hamas events,’ that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States of America. It’s that simple. So, you lied… if you had told us that you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa. Now you’re here. Now you do it. You lied to us. You’re out.”
Brennan then pressed Rubio as to whether there was any evidence linking Khalil to terrorism — prompting him to point to Khalil’s involvement in vandalism and unlawful occupation of Columbia University’s campus buildings.
“That’s a crime in and of itself,” Rubio argued. “We don’t need these people in our country that we never should have allowed them in in the first place. If he had told us, ‘I’m going over there, and I’m going over there to become the spokesperson and one of the leaders of a movement that’s going to turn one of your allegedly elite colleges upside down,’ people can’t even go to school, library buildings being vandalized. We never would have let him in. We never would have let him in to begin with. And now that he’s doing it and he’s here, he’s going to leave, and so are others, and we’re going to keep doing it.”
The Secretary of State went on to call out the leftists defending Khalil’s right to free speech, pointing out that those same leftists have repeatedly supported censoring actual Americans’ political speech.
“I find it ironic that a lot of these people out there defending the First Amendment speech, alleged free speech rights of these Hamas sympathizers, they had no problem, okay, pressuring social media to censor American political speech,” Rubio said. “So it’s, I think it’s ironic and hypocritical.”
“If you are in this country, to promote Hamas, to promote terrorist organizations, to participate in vandalism, to participate in acts of rebellion and riots on campus. We never would have let you in if we had known that and now that we know it, you’re going to leave,” he added.
Rubio concluded by pointing out the fact that visas have never been a right, just a privilege.
“We don’t want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes and undermining our national security or the public safety,” he said. “I don’t know what we’ve gotten it in our head that a visa is some sort of birthright. It is not. It is a visitor into our country, and if you violate the terms of your visitation, you are going to leave.”
Khalil was still living in Columbia University housing after finishing his studies in December. According to DHS, Khalil is being deported after he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” Khalil took part in riots that took over the Milstein Library of Barnard College, a part of Columbia University, that included the dissemination of violent propaganda flyers sourced from the “Hamas Media Office.”
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