Rubio Is Using Red Scare-Era Immigration Provision to Go After Protesters

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked an obscure immigration provision enacted during the J. Edgar Hoover-era Red Scare to target pro-Palestine protesters, reports say as advocates for Palestinian rights warn that the crackdown on protests against Israel’s genocide is just the beginning of a wider suppression of free speech rights.

The State Department is using a provision established in 1952 — as federal officials were surveilling and prosecuting people on suspicion of them being communists or communist sympathizers — in the Immigration and Nationality Act to capture and revoke the visas of immigrants who have expressed support for Palestinian rights, reports have found, in a program called “Catch and Revoke.”

This provision was used in the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil on Saturday, a Palestinian Columbia University protester and green card holder, Zeteo reports. Rubio reportedly personally signed off on Khalil’s arrest and deportation, with officials seemingly believing at first that Khalil was in the U.S. on a visa, but later pivoting and saying that the administration will also revoke green cards after realizing Khalil’s status.

Legal experts have pointed out that, while green card holders do have more protections under the law from anti-immigrant actions, the Secretary of State does hold the authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to make personal determinations to remove green card holders if their presence in the country “would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”

Legal expert Steve Vladeck has noted that Rubio is supposed to provide Congress with notification of the decision, but it’s unclear if he’s adhered to that process.

Forward pointed out last week that the Immigration and Nationality Act codified the federal government’s ability to go after “subversives,” and particularly targeted “Eastern European Jewish Holocaust survivors suspected of being Soviet agents,” the publication wrote.

As part of the “Catch and Revoke” program, the administration is reportedly using AI to identify and track pro-Palestine protesters and those who supposedly express sympathies for Hamas — code for those who support Palestinian rights.

The administration has already identified “multiple targets” like Khalil under the program, Zeteo reported on Tuesday, citing State Department officials familiar with the campaign.

This comes as numerous civil society groups, legal experts and progressive advocates have raised dire concern over the threat to free speech rights posed by Khalil’s detention — and the escalation of repressive, McCarthyist tactics being used against protesters on the left.

In November 2023 under the Biden administration, when he was a senator, Rubio had personally advocated for the State Department to use the Immigration and Nationality Act to target supposed “Hamas supporters,” saying that the agency has “broad authority … to revoke visas.”

The State Department responded to the letter shortly after it was sent confirming that the department does indeed hold that authority. The agency seemingly never invoked that power under President Joe Biden, though Biden did repeatedly condemn protesters and accuse them of having terrorist sympathies, as the Trump administration is doing.