President Donald Trump’s border czar declared Monday that immigrants living legally in the U.S. can “absolutely” be kicked out of the country—even if they have green cards.
Tom Homan was asked whether Mahmoud Khalil, who lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday night, can be deported even though he holds a green card and resides in the country legally.
“Absolutely we can,” Homan told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney.
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“Did he violate the terms of his visa? Did he violate the terms of his residency here, you know, committing crimes, attacking Israeli students, locking down buildings, destroying property? Absolutely, any resident alien who commits a crime is eligible for deportation,” he said, referring to pro-Palestine students’ occupation of a Columbia administrative building during protests last year.
“And that’s just one out of many,” he added. Homan is an unelected official designated by Trump as “border czar.”
The comment comes hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that legal residents could get their green cards and visas revoked.
“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” he wrote in an X post that linked to a story about Khalil’s arrest.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, told the Associated Press that the arrest was made “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.”
The arrest was met with immediate backlash from immigration groups, who say it is a violation of the First Amendment, which protects the freedom of speech and assembly. His attorney, Amy Greer, told ABC News the arrest represents the “government’s open repression of student activism and political speech.”
“The U.S. government has made clear that they will use immigration enforcement as a tool to suppress that speech,” she said.
A petition calling for Khalil’s release has been signed more than 1 million times.
Green cards and visas can be revoked if the holder is convicted of a crime or considered a threat to national security, but immigration judges make that decision. Khalil has not been convicted of a crime.
