Vice President JD Vance stirred fresh debate on Thursday by saying that a green card doesn’t guarantee immigrants the right to stay in the US forever.
A green card, officially called a Permanent Resident Card, lets foreign nationals, including Indians, live and work in the country. But despite the name, “permanent residency” doesn’t necessarily mean lifelong security.
“A green card holder doesn’t have an indefinite right to be in the United States,” JD Vance said in an interview with ‘The Ingraham Angle’ host Laura Ingraham on Fox News.
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“This is not fundamentally about free speech, and to me, yes, it’s about national security, but it’s also more importantly about who do we as an American public decide gets to join our national community,” Vance said.
“And if the secretary of state and the president decide this person shouldn’t be in America, and they have no legal right to stay here, it’s as simple as that,” he added.
Vance’s statement comes in response to the arrest of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, who was detained on Saturday for his role in protests against the Israel-Hamas war at Columbia University last spring.
Mahmoud Khalil case
The Donald Trump administration has moved to revoke Mahmoud Khalil’s green card, accusing him of leading “activities aligned with Hamas,” the militant group whose October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war.
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His arrest has triggered outrage from critics of the Trump administration as well as free speech advocates, including some on the political right, who say such a move has a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
Khalil, who has not been charged with a crime, is being held in immigration custody in Louisiana after being arrested in New York City on Saturday. Khalil’s lawyers have said Trump’s administration targeted him for arrest and deportation because of his advocacy in violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment protections for freedom of speech.
Under a provision of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, a law passed in 1952, any immigrants may be deported if the secretary of state deems their presence in the country potentially adverse to American foreign policy. Legal experts have said that provision is rarely invoked, and Khalil’s lawyers have said it was not intended to silence dissent.
The Justice Department did not elaborate in its filing on how Khalil could harm US foreign policy objectives. Trump and officials in his administration have, without presenting evidence, accused Khalil of supporting Hamas.
