[pona-a]

You are facing a constitutional crisis right now, something most EU members can say they do not.

  > Khalil called his lawyer, Amy Greer, from the building's lobby. She spoke over the phone with one of the ICE agents, who told her they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Greer said when she informed the agent that Khalil was a permanent resident of the U.S. in possession of a green card, the agent responded they would revoke the green card instead. When Greer said she needed to see a warrant before Khalil could be detained, the agent hung up. Abdalla said they were not shown a warrant and that "within minutes, they had handcuffed Mahmoud, took him out into the street and forced him into an unmarked car". A Columbia spokesperson declined to say whether, before the arrest, the university had received a warrant for the ICE agents to access property the university owned. The spokesperson also declined to comment on the arrest.

  > On March 9, Greer said she was uncertain of Khalil's whereabouts, noting the possibility that he could be as far away as Louisiana. Abdalla, who sought to visit him at a detention center in New Jersey, was informed that he was not there. Khalil is detained at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana. [0]

Without appropriate warrants or being accused of a tangible crime in the court of law, a permanent USA resident has been detained, while being denied his right to speak with his lawyer for a significant part of his detention, with the post-hoc justification being his engagement in "anti-American", though not illegal, activity, ignoring claims of monetary ties with terrorist orgs made on national TV without being able to provide any corroboration when pressured.

Let's ignore political affiliations, who's on what team, and who you're rooting for. Applying abstraction, replace America with "Country X" and you see, plain as day, this as an attempt at silencing unfavorable speech. As a Ukrainian, sharing a language, geography, and personal connections across the border with Russia, I can tell you with certainty: this is how "disappearing" someone looks like. The target does not matter; the "enemies of people" set has a funny tendency to expand, starting from those for whom the least will stand up.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil

[immibis]

The government breaking the law isn't a constitutional crisis. It becomes a constitutional crisis when different parts of the government pull it in drastically different directions and the whole thing breaks apart. Currently the government is moving in exactly the direction the executive branch wants it to, the judicial branch has found that it has no traction to pull it back and the legislature isn't really even participating except for cheering on the executive. Like it or not, the possibile crisis has already been resolved by the executive discovering that it can do whatever it wants.

[carlosjobim]

> you see, plain as day, this as an attempt at silencing unfavorable speech.

Of course it is. But there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen. Any foreigner can be denied entry to a country for any and no reason whatsoever, without any due process. So a foreigner's "right" to stay in a country sits very loosely.

[frenchyatwork]

> Any foreigner can be denied entry to a country for any and no reason whatsoever

That's a completely different thing than what happened here. Those are the rules, everyone knows that, and acts accordingly. The biggest problem in the US right now, is that the government isn't being ruled by it's own laws (sort-of). That's what's meant by a "constitutional crisis".

If the US government changed the rules to allow non-citizens to be arrested & held without warrants, then that would a different kind of thing. It would be a little totalitarian, but not a breakdown of the rule of law.

Note, I said sort-of above because the laws are written in such away as to be somewhat vague so that some people claim the government is acting legally.

[peppers-ghost]

The constitution does not only apply to citizens. If you're in the US you are supposed to have freedom of speech.

[carlosjobim]

And outside the US this wouldn't even be a discussion, because you don't have freedom of speech. That's why people consider him a victim for being kicked out.

[michh]

He has (or had) permanent resident status. On a path to becoming a citizen. I think ‘foreigner’ does not accurately reflect that.

[carlosjobim]

I think the word "foreigner" is perfectly correct. The difference is that as a foreigner, you have chosen to come to another country – among hundreds to choose from. As a native citizen, you haven't made any such choice and you might not be able to even if you wanted to.

[immibis]

If I have the choice to leave my home country or not, and I choose to stay, am I then a foreigner?

[deathanatos]

> there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen

The White House has shown open contempt for the judicial and legislative branches. Why do you think they'd stop, simply because the person they've chosen to make an example of is a citizen?

But fine, he's a foreigner. What's so hard about the human right of due process, here? Serve the warrant. Appear in court. Argue the case that is, according to those in favor of yeeting this guy out the country, so blindingly obvious.

[deathanatos]

> Why do you think they'd stop, simply because the person they've chosen to make an example of is a citizen?

The ink was barely dry on my own comment:

> President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court in a series of emergency appeals Thursday to allow him to move forward with plans to end birthright citizenship

Due process must be enforced.

[shadowgovt]

> But there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen

Not nearly as huge as one wants it to be, especially when the current executive is experimenting legally with citizenship revocation.

You divide human beings under your jurisdiction into wide categories with hugely unequal rights and the incentives are heavy for rulers to remove the inconvenient in their society by reclassifying them. It's much safer for citizen and non-citizen alike to strongly protect the non-citizen in your borders.