Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a member of President Trump’s Cabinet, may not be the most attention-grabbing individual, but he is expected to have a significant impact on the Trump 2.0 administration. This importance is underscored by the challenges left by the Biden administration in the realm of foreign affairs. Rubio’s prominence in recent events, such as the Russia-Ukraine peace talks and the case involving Mahmoud Khalil, has highlighted his role.
Rubio is known for his composed demeanor and wealth of knowledge, qualities that are particularly valuable amidst the outcry from Democrats and leftists regarding the situation of Khalil, who has been described as an antisemitic “college student.” The events at hand require a level-headed approach, which Rubio seems to embody. Looking back at recent occurrences sheds light on the context.
Columbia University has been at the center of incidents characterized by antisemitic sentiments, mirroring a trend seen on many college campuses since October 7. Masked individuals have taken over university buildings, chanting hostile messages aimed at Jewish individuals. The disruption of classes, the sense of threat experienced by Jewish students, and the passive response from university officials have collectively created a concerning environment, with insinuations that there may be tacit support for such anti-Semitic behavior among the administration.
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Well, all the fun came to a screeching halt earlier this week when one of Columbia’s chief pro-Hamas agitators, the afore-mentioned Mahmoud Khalil, a citizen of Algeria, got a friendly visit from his local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. To his credit, Khalil didn’t always hide behind a keffiyeh and proudly put his face front and center at the campus “protests,” so he made it easy for officials to identify and detain him. In short, he FAed and FOed.Â
And the White House had some fun with it.
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Right on cue, Khalil’s detainment and likely deportation back to Algeria brought out the histrionics from Democrats and their lefty-loon base. How dare the Trump administration detain one of their own? Since the left is always ready to agitate, they merely removed their antisemitic slurs from their protest signs and replaced them with their boilerplate, anti-Trump sentiments. Remember, these are the people who can’t summon the will to applaud for a young cancer patient, but they’ve got all the energy in the world to advocate for a terrorist sympathizer who, as it turns out, has no right to be in the United States.
And this is something Secretary of State Rubio laid out beautifully on Wednesday, explaining to the left like they’re five years old that Mr. Khalil has more than earned his one-way ticket home.
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When you come to the U.S. as a visitor — which is what a visa is, which is how this individual entered this country, on a visitor’s visa — you are here as a VISITOR. We can deny you that visa. If you tell us when you apply, “Hi, I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa – ‘I am a big supporter of Hamas,’ a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages – if you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and you tell us when you apply for your visa, “And by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, antisemitic activities, I intend to shut down your university.
If you told us these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa. I hope we would.
And if you actually end up doing that, once you’re in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it. And if you have a green card–not citizenship–as a result of that visa, while you’re here and those activities? We’re gonna kick you out. It’s as simple as that. This is not about free speech. This is about people who don’t have any right to be in the United States.
Rubio is crystal-clear in his messaging here: the left can melt down all it wants over this guy, but the days of coddling extremists, especially those making life hell on U.S. college campuses, are over. This is just the beginning of the detaining and deporting, and Democrats bemoan it merely because these bad actors make up their base and their base is about to shrink even more.
