Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyer says Trump administration looking to ‘disappear’ activist, attack free speech
Addressing protesters outside the courthouse where Mahmoud Khalil’s detention is being considered, his attorney warned that the pro-Palestinian activist’s case is a sign that Donald Trump’s administration plans to crack down on speech it disagrees with.
“Speaking out against what the Trump administration is doing does not give them the right to disappear our people,” said Diala Shamas, a lawyer with the progressive legal advocacy group Center for Constitutional Rights.
“We need to fight as hard as we can for Mahmoud because of what this portends: the invocation of these draconian provisions in the law that say simply ‘we will deport somebody because we disagree with their opinions, that their opinions that do not align with our foreign policy views’ is terrifying. It should scare us all.”
Shamas said she believed hostility to Palestinian activism transcends administrations, and accused Joe Biden for setting the stage for Khalil’s arrest:
To be clear, this starts with speaking out for Palestinian rights but we know Palestine is and functions as a canary in a coal mine. It is because of the previous administration and long-standing anti-Palestinian bipartisan support that we find ourselves here today.
Julius Constantine Motal
Protesters call for Mahmoud Khalil’s release outside court in New York – in pictures:
Erum Salam
Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil spoke to the press outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan.
One lawyer spoke about the legal justification the Trump administration and federal government tried to use to detain and deport Khalil.
He said: “The government, as far as we understand it, are relying on a rarely used provision that determines a noncitizen’s presence or activities in this country poses a serious risk of adverse foreign policy conflict.
“Of course, that provision is not only rarely used, it is certainly not intended by Congress to silence dissent.”
He added: “For that reason, we believe this case is not going to set the precedent that the government wants it to set, whether it’s in federal court or immigration court.”
Erum Salam
Actor and activist Susan Sarandon spoke to the Guardian outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan.
She said: “No matter where you stand on the genocide, freedom of speech affects everyone and this is a turning point in our history.”
Protesters gather outside court to protest against Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest
Erum Salam
Hundreds of protesters gathered at Foley Square on Wednesday, just outside the Manhattan federal court holding the hearing for Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who was arrested by immigration officials on Saturday over his role in the college’s encampment protests of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Khalil, who is a legal permanent US resident and green card holder, sits in Ice detention in Louisiana. Free speech advocates have expressed outrage at his arrest. His lawyers hope to secure his release.
Margaret Jay Finch, a protester, told the Guardian she is “so upset that Mahmoud is in the darkness in Louisiana. I can’t tell you.”
“I feel so bad for his wife. I am so worried that this is against the first amendment and we’re going to lose our rights,” Finch, 83, said. “This is such a dictatorship.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has maxed out its ability to hold suspected undocumented migrants, and will seek out bed space from other federal agencies, Reuters reports.
A senior Ice official speaking on condition of anonymity said the agency has 47,600 people in custody, but is funded to hold an average of 41,500. Ice has asked for help expanding its capacity from the defense department, the US Marshalls Service and the Bureau of Prisons.
Republicans in Congress have vowed to soon pass legislation that will pay for Donald Trump’s plan to remove the United States of undocumented immigrants through mass deportations.
The day so far
It’s another day of trade turmoil, with the United States imposing tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum and Canada and the European Union retaliating with levies of their own. Canada’s reaction has been particularly forceful, considering how close of an ally it usually is to the US and how Donald Trump has mused about taking it over. At a press conference, foreign minister Mélanie Joly called the US trade war “unjustified and unjustifiable”, and said she would protest to secretary of state Marco Rubio at a summit of top G7 diplomats. Meanwhile, Trump has welcomed Micheál Martin, the taoiseach of Ireland, to the White House. In an Oval Office meeting, Trump complained about Dublin’s tax policies and defended gutting the education department.
Here’s what else has been happening:
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Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, will not seek re-election next year, further complicating her party’s chances of retaking the chamber’s majority.
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Inflation data showed that prices remained stable last month, with no signs of Trump’s trade wars driving them higher – yet.
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Senate Democrats are in a bind after the House yesterday voted to pass a government funding bill that will cut their party’s priorities.
With taoiseach Micheál Martin sitting right next to him in the Oval Office, Donald Trump criticized Ireland’s position as a tax haven.
The island has attracted American companies in sectors like tech and pharmaceuticals who are looking to cut down on their tax burden. Trump said allowing that to happen was the fault of previous administrations.
“This beautiful island … of 5 million people, it’s got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasp,” he said. “I’d like to see the United States not have been so stupid for so many years, not just with Ireland, with everybody.”
He then said he would have used tariffs to stop US companies from basing themselves in Ireland to avoid taxes:
Who would have been so stupid to let these deals happen? For instance, when the pharmaceutical company started to go to Ireland, I would have said, that’s okay, if you want to go to Ireland, I think it’s great, but if you want to sell anything into the United States, I’m going to put a 200% tariff on you so you’re never going to be able to sell anything into the United States. You know what they would have done? They would have stayed here.
Take away the threat of tariffs, and he sounds a little bit like Joe Biden:
Trump attacks Department of Education employees, accusing them of ‘not showing up to work’
As his administration moves to gut the Department of Education, Donald Trump levied an attack on employees at federal agency, accusing them of being lazy and saying education should be handled by the states.
“Many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work,” the president said in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin.
His administration yesterday ordered a mass dismissal of employees that amounted to essentially cutting its staff in half, but Trump said the education secretary, Linda McMahon, intended to dismiss only those who were underperforming:
We want to cut, but we want to cut the people that aren’t working or not doing a good job. We’re keeping the best people.
He went on to say that his goal was “to move education into the states”.
The idea of abolishing the department education has long circulated among conservatives, and Trump appears to be making good on it. Here’s more on the mass firings:
Donald Trump’s barrage of tariffs on major trading partners over various slights has spurred a growing campaign to boycott traveling to, or buying from, the United States. The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont has more:
The renowned German classical violinist Christian Tetzlaff was blunt in explaining why he and his quartet have cancelled a summer tour of the US.
“There seems to be a quietness or denial about what’s going on,” Tetzlaff said, describing his horror at the authoritarian polices of Donald Trump and the response of US elites to the country’s growing democratic crisis.
“I feel utter anger. I cannot go on with this feeling inside. I cannot just go and play a tour of beautiful concerts.”
Tetzlaff is not alone in acting on his disquiet. A growing international move to boycott the US is spreading from Scandinavia to Canada to the UK and beyond as consumers turn against US goods.
Most prominent so far has been the rejection by European car buyers of the Teslas produced by Elon Musk, now a prominent figure in Trump’s administration as the head of the “department of government efficiency”, a special group created by Trump that has contributed to the precipitous declines in Tesla’s share price. About 15% of its value was wiped out on Monday alone.
The fall in Tesla sales in Europe has been well documented, as has a Canadian consumer boycott in response to trade tariffs and Trump’s calls for Canada to become the 51st US state, but the past week has seen daily reports of cultural and other forms of boycotts and disinvestment.
Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has arrived at the White House, where he was greeted by Donald Trump.
The two leaders turned to the press briefly, and the US president was asked about today’s inflation data. “Very good news,” Trump yelled, before heading inside.
While Canada and the European Union moved swiftly to retaliate for Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, one major US trading partner is holding off, for now.
Reuters reports that Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said her government will attempt to negotiate an end to the tariffs, particularly with Trump vowing “reciprocal” tariffs starting next month.
“We will wait until 2 April and from then we will see whether our definition of reciprocal tariffs will be applied too,” Sheinbaum said today.
US trade representative calls EU policies ‘out of step with reality’ in response to retaliatory tariffs
Trade tensions are also flaring across the Atlantic, after the United States today imposed 25% levies on imports of steel and aluminum and the European Union responded with retaliatory tariffs.
In response, US trade representative Jamieson Greer accused the EU of interfering with attempts by the United States to rebuild its manufacturing sector:
For years, the European Union has opposed the United States’ efforts to reindustrialize. The EU has rejected attempts under successive US administrations to cooperate effectively on dealing with global excess capacity on steel, aluminum and other sectors, employing measures that are too little and too late.
If the EU acted as quickly to address global excess capacity as it does to punish the United States, we likely would be in a different situation today. The EU’s punitive action completely disregards the national security imperatives of the United States – and indeed international security – and is yet another indicator that the EU’s trade and economic policies are out of step with reality.
Here’s the latest on the squabble:
Foreign ministers from G7 countries, including Canada and the United States, are meeting in Quebec’s Charlevoix region starting today.
It’s impeccable timing, as the group of countries – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States – are newly at loggerheads over Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on a range of allies.
The Canadian foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, said she’ll raise the issue when she meets with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio:
In every single meeting, I will raise the issue of tariffs to coordinate a response with the Europeans and to put pressure on the Americans. This is much more than about our economy. It is about the future of our country. Canadian sovereignty and identity are non-negotiable. Canadians have had enough, and we are a strong country who will defend our sovereignty, will defend our jobs and will defend our way of living, and we will do so altogether, every single day and one day at a time.
Earlier in the day, Reuters reports that Rubio told reporters he will not bring up at the meeting Trump’s plan to make Canada the 51st US state.
Canadian foreign minister condemns ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’ trade war
Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, Mélanie Joly, asked Americans to tell their elected representatives that they do not want Donald Trump to pursue a trade war against their northern neighbor.
“The only constant in this unjustified and unjustifiable trade war seems to be President Trump’s talks of annexing our country’s through economic coercion,” Joly told a press conference. “Yesterday, he called our border a fictional line and repeated his disrespectful 51st state rhetoric. Well, Canadians have made it very clear that we will not back down and we will not give in to this coercion.”
Joly spoke directly to Americans, and asked that they make their objections known:
To our American friends, I want you to remember this, Canada is your best friend, best neighbor and best ally. Many of us have family on both sides of the border. Canada is also America’s best and biggest customer. We buy more American goods than the UK, France, China and Japan altogether. Together, we have spent generations building a relationship between our countries that is the envy of the world. Canada is not the one driving up the cost of your groceries or of your gasoline or any of your construction. Canada is not the one putting your jobs at risk. Canada is not the one that is ultimately starting this war. President Trump’s tariffs against you are causing that and there are no winners in a trade war.
American friends, help us help you. Please, help us end these tariffs as quickly as possible, and please talk to your elected representatives at the federal at the state and municipal level, please talk to your governors, to your senators, to your House representatives and to your mayors. Send a message to the White House.
Canada to impose 25% tariffs on nearly $30bn in US imports as trade war flares
In response to 25% tariffs imposed by Donald Trump on steel and aluminum imports, Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, says his country will tomorrow retaliate with levies of the same amount on almost $30bn in imports from the United States.
“I am announcing that the government of Canada, following a dollar for dollar approach, will be imposing, as of 12.01am, tomorrow, March 13, 2025, 25% reciprocal tariffs on an additional $29.8bn of imports from the United States,” LeBlanc said at a press conference.
“This includes steel products worth $12.6bn and aluminum products worth $3bn, as well as additional imported US goods worth $14.2bn for a total of $29.8bn. The list of additional products affected by counter-tariffs includes computers, sports equipment and cast iron products, as examples.”
