Free Republic

Memo to law enforcement: Do your job, and let the activist lawyers rage on MSNBC while you enforce the law. The activist lawyer playbook is well-worn, but we get a case study in legal acrobatics every so often—a perfect example of just how far they’ll go to manipulate the system and shield their radical clients from consequences. Enter Mahmoud Khalil’s attorney, who reportedly demanded by phone to see his arrest warrant before he was taken into custody—a move that was less about legal rights and more about buying time for a friendly judge to intervene. ICE wasn’t playing along. When...

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled that anti-Israel agitator Mahmoud Khalil is not to be deported "unless and until the Court orders otherwise," on Monday. Khalil, who led anti-Israel protests and encampments on Columbia University's campus, was taken into custody on the Upper West Side in New York City on Saturday. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that he was a former Columbia graduate student who "led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization." The judge ordered a hearing for Wednesday. This after Khalil's lawyer argued their client had been detained illegally and should be released. Politicians have...

A Palestinian activist who led the disruptive anti-Israel protests at both Columbia University and Barnard College has been arrested by ICE agents at his campus apartment, according to his lawyer. Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student who got his undergraduate degree in Beirut and completed his studies at Ivy League Columbia in December, also reportedly faces having his visa revoked and his green card canceled following President Trump’s crackdown on unrest at colleges. He was inside his university-owned apartment a few blocks from campus Saturday night when ICE agents entered the residence and took him into custody, attorney Amy Greer...

...Mr. Lord is at pains to note that, although Judge Smith is less known than other judicial nominees who have come under "borking" assault -- think of William Pryor, Miguel Estrada, Janice Rogers Brown and Charles Pickering -- his experience offers a kind of template of abuse: Activist groups unearth whatever harmful details they can find, no matter how dubious; they gin them up into screaming charges; the charges in turn get picked up by reporters, eager to keep pace with a potential "controversy," and by politicians, eager to find any stick with which to beat a "dangerous" nominee from...