In January of 1987, Michel Shehadeh, a Palestinian man who'd lawfully immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager, was taking care of his toddler son at home when federal agents arrived at his door and arrested him at gunpoint. Shehadeh soon learned he was one of eight immigrants arrested on charges relating to their pro-Palestinian activism. Then, in March of 2025, federal agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate student, and Georgetown professor Badar Khan Suri. Both are in the U.S. legally, being threatened with deportation. And both are targets of the Trump administration's crackdown on what they describe as anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas speech on college campuses. We hear from David Cole, who represented the Los Angeles Eight for insight into this moment, and what we can learn from their plight.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [email protected] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What led to the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil?
It's been very overwhelming. It's like when I wake up in the morning, it's a lot of, like, just go, go, go, call after call after call. It really, I don't think it, like, hits me until, like, Sorry, I'm a mess this morning.
That's Nora Abdallah speaking with NPR. Her husband, Columbia graduate student and legal U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the evening of March 8th.
He's like, are you Mahmoud Khalil? Mahmoud said yes. And he says, I'm with the police. You have to come with us. I think at that point, like, honestly, like, my heart sank.
Khalil was taken to a detention facility in Louisiana and has been there since. He has not been charged with a crime. The government has instead accused him of being a Hamas sympathizer, a claim his wife vehemently denies.
I just want to be clear that the smears against Mahmoud are exactly that. They're smears. He has and always will stand up for what's right. And the way that he was taken from his family was...
was not right. Since his arrest, the government has also alleged in a court document that he failed to disclose some of his employment history in his application for a green card. And Mahmoud Khalil is not the only Columbia student for whom federal agents have come knocking.
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Chapter 2: Why did Ranjani Sreenivasan flee to Canada?
I did not answer the door. My roommate did, and I'm grateful to her for that. She asked them to identify themselves repeatedly, and they refused. They first said they were police. Secondly, They said they were a supervisor, and eventually she was able to get them to admit that they were from immigration.
Ranjani Sreenivasan is a 37-year-old architect who was set to finish a doctoral program at Columbia in May when she was notified that her visa had been revoked. She told NPR's Here and Now that the Department of Homeland Security is accusing her of advocating for violence and terrorism. She'd attended a handful of protests against killings of civilians in the war between Israel and Hamas.
Rather than risk arrest, she fled to Canada.
I'm not a terrorist sympathizer. I'm not pro Hamas. And I think it's really dangerous to label any free speech that, you know, somebody disagrees with or any sort of peaceful objection to global issues. as terrorism, I think it just creates a climate of fear.
Chapter 3: How does the government justify these deportations?
Consider this. The Trump administration's efforts to deport foreign-born students have set off alarm bells about where and when the First Amendment is applied. But it's not the first time our government has tried to deport student activists for pro-Palestinian speech. Almost 40 years ago, it tried to do the same thing on different legal grounds.
Coming up, we'll hear from a lawyer who defended those students about what's at stake. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Consider This from NPR. One morning in January of 1987, Michel Shahada, a Palestinian man who'd lawfully emigrated to the United States as a teenager, was taking care of his toddler son at home when federal agents arrived at his door and arrested him at gunpoint.
Chapter 4: What happened to the Los Angeles Eight in the 1980s?
Shahada soon learned he was one of eight immigrants, mostly students and known as the L.A.A. arrested on charges relating to their pro-Palestinian activism. Fast forward to this month, when federal agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate student, and Georgetown professor Badar Kansouri. Like the LA8, both are in the U.S.
legally being threatened with deportation, and both are targets of the Trump administration's crackdown on what they describe as anti-Semitic pro-Hamas speech on college campuses across the country. For insight into this moment and what we can learn from the plight of the LA-8, we turn now to David Cole. He represented the LA-8 over their 20-year fight to remain in the United States.
David Cole, welcome to the program.
Thanks for having me.
I just want to start by asking you, as briefly as you can, could you just walk us through what happened to the LA-8?
Well, as you indicated in your opening, they were arrested at gunpoint. They were all detained initially as national security threats. When we challenged that assertion, the government said it wanted to rely on secret evidence that we couldn't see to show that they were security threats.
The judge said, no, I'm not going to look at secret evidence unless you can show it to the defendants, essentially. And the government said, OK, well, then we're not going to show it to the judge either. And they were allowed out. So they were free after about the first month. They were free for the entire 20-year saga of their case.
But it took 20 years to prevail in a case in which the government targeted our clients not for engaging any criminal activity at all, but for essentially advocating for Palestinian self-determination.
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Chapter 5: What were the legal challenges faced by the LA-8?
As you mentioned, these cases went on for more than two decades. How did that affect the lives of the L.A. families?
Well, because they were free, they were able to work. Some of them got green cards while the case was going on. The principal restriction on them was that they weren't able to leave the country permanently. without giving up their case.
And so a number of them lost parents who were living back in Palestine and were unable to go see their parents in the last years, months, days of their lives without giving up their right to stay in this country. And they just had, for two decades, hanging over their heads the fact that they may want
lose the right to be in this country despite the fact that they engaged in no unlawful activity because of what they said and what they believed in.
What are the similarities that you see between their case and those that are being brought today against Mahmoud Khalil and the others?
Well, it's really deja vu all over again. The government is targeting Palestinians engaged in nothing more than protest activities on campuses. Why? Because the government disagrees with the viewpoints expressed. And so they are seeking to deport people for their speech. And what we established in the LA-8 case was that the First Amendment protects all of us in the United States.
It doesn't limit its protections to citizens. It protects everyone in the United States, whether you're a citizen or an immigrant, whether you're here on a student visa or a permanent resident visa, or even if you're here illegally, you have First Amendment rights. The government can't prosecute you
for burning an American flag or for saying something offensive or for advocating in favor of Palestinian rights or against Israel. And it also can't deport you for doing the same thing.
Why do you think it is that the government has gone after folks on college campuses in particular when it comes to this kind of speech?
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