FILE PHOTO: People walk on the Business School campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., April 15, 2025. Photo: Faith Ninivaggi via Reuters Connect.

The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to deny a preliminary injunction request as part of a lawsuit challenging its attempt to deport pro-Hamas activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and three of its local chapters sued the federal government to halt deportation proceedings involving expatriate pro-Hamas activists enrolled in American institutions of higher education, arguing that the allegedly seditious contents of their speech are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Filed in March, the legal complaint came several weeks after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) high-profile arrest and detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University alumnus who was an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover and other disturbances in the New York City area this semester. Similar action has since been taken against others, including Cornell University graduate student Momodou Taal, a dual citizen of Gambia and the United Kingdom, and Columbia University student Yunseo Chung, a noncitizen legal resident from South Korea.

The AAUP and its chapters at Harvard University, Rutgers University, and New York University, along with the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), argued in court documents that the Trump administration’s “policy has created a climate of repression and fear,” charging that ICE is “terrorizing students and faculty for their exercise of First Amendment rights in the past, intimidating them from exercising those rights now, and silencing political viewpoints that the government disfavors.”

Monday’s filing constitutes the Trump administration’s first challenge to the case.

“Plaintiffs fundamentally misunderstand how the First Amendment applies in this context” government lawyers argued in the pleading. “They conflate the fact that the First Amendment applies at all to aliens, with the First Amendment applying in full to them.”

The government went on to explain that Khalil and other aliens deemed as posing a threat to national security lack complete constitutional protections with which American citizens are endowed by right, noting that past case law has determined that while they are entitled to “freedom of speech and of press,” protections of those freedoms are “less robust.” Responding to the lawsuit’s charge that the deportation of Khalil, and others, is “ideologically motivated” — that is, that the Trump administration aims to purge the country of jihadist supporters — it added that the US Supreme Court ruled in 1951 that the federal government may constitutionally deport aliens who hold seditious beliefs such as communism, as is prescribed by the Alien Registration Act of 1940.

In conclusion, the government argued that pausing the deportation policy would undermine the public interest.

“Plaintiffs seek an injunction that would extend over immigration  against all ‘noncitizen students and faculty’ in the country,” the filing says. “That is unjustifiable.”

Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, pro-Hamas activists in the US, citizen and noncitizen, have allegedly violated the civil rights of Jewish students, penned extremist manifestos calling for revolutionary violence and overthrowing the government, and contributed to the spread of anti-Western beliefs.

Additionally, pro-Hamas activists have perpetrated gang assaults, threatened to commit mass murders of Jewish college students, and vandalized private property, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. Recently, a lawsuit, first reported by the The Free Press, alleged that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the principal organizer of pro-Hamas activities on US campuses, received advanced knowledge of the Oct. 7 atrocities, suggesting a level of coordination between US-based anti-Zionists and jihadist terrorist groups that could pose a danger to national security.

President Donald Trump initiated the removal of pro-Hamas green-card holders living in the US through a January executive order which called for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” A major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction on college campuses. Trump has also said that foreign students who hold demonstrations in support of Hamas “will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.”

The policy has many detractors, such as AAUP president Todd Wolfson, who has said that it undermines civil liberties.

Alex Joffe, anthropologist and editor of BDS Monitor for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in March that the administration’s actions are legal and safeguard US interests.

“The Trump administration’s new policy of deporting pro-Hamas demonstrators who are not citizens is an important step toward addressing problems related to Hamas in America,” he explained in a statement. “The Immigration and Naturalization Act clearly gives the Secretary of State the authority to deport aliens on a variety of grounds, including endangering public safety and national security.”

A Louisiana immigration judge, Jamee E. Comans, recently agreed with President Trump, as well as Mr. Joffe, ruling that the federal government has “established clear and convincing evidence that [Mahmoud Khalil] is removable” due to “severe, adverse foreign policy consequences” carried by continued residing in the US. Khalil’s attorneys have until April 23 to petition the appeal his deportation.

If they do not do so, Khalil will be repatriated either to Syria or Algeria, two countries in which he reportedly holds citizenship.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post ‘Unjustifiable’: Trump Administration Responds to Deportations Lawsuit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Billy was taken by Hamas from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) helped reunite Billy, a dog kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with her family on Wednesday after discovering her in the southern Gaza Strip.

The three-and-a-half-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel was identified via a microchip which helped reunite the animal with its owner, Rachel Dancyg. She is the ex-wife of Alex Dancyg, who was abducted by Hamas during the Oct.7 massacre and later killed in captivity. The IDF confirmed his death last year.

Rachel survived the Oct. 7 atrocities and managed to save her two granddaughters. However, her brother, Itzik Elgarat, was also abducted by Hamas and murdered in Gaza.

Months after Hamas’s onslaught, Rachel and her family continued searching for Billy, but they believed the dog had been killed after finding a blood stain in the house.

“My brother Itzik didn’t come back. And Alex didn’t come back. And here, this little dog, survived,” Rachel said after being reunited with Billy. “I hadn’t managed to get her into the safe room and I imagined that they’d [Hamas] killed her, because they killed all the dogs at Nir Oz.”

According to Israel’s Channel 12 news, Aviad Shapira, a reserve soldier in Golani’s 13th Battalion, found Billy when she emerged from the rubble after hearing soldiers speaking Hebrew.

“We had just conquered the Morag corridor in order to encircle Rafah. I went to the Namer [armored personnel carrier] and saw lovely Billie walking toward me,” Shapira told Channel 12, recounting her experience.

“She just ran up to me and jumped on me. I told myself that she would come with me to Israel and I really fought for her to come with me,” she continued.

Rachel’s family and friends were murdered on October 7.

Her dog Billy was kidnapped to Gaza.

For a year and a half, Rachel didn’t know if he was alive.

This week, an IDF reservist found him in Rafah.

Today, they were reunited. pic.twitter.com/xfiKyGNUur

— Tamar Schwarzbard (@TSchwarzbard) April 16, 2025

In a statement, Rachel and her family expressed their gratitude to the IDF soldiers for bringing Billy home.

“We thank, from the bottom of our hearts, the Golani Brigades reservist who insisted on taking Billy with her and returning her to Israel,” the statement reads. “Thank you to all the heroic IDF combat soldiers, you showed us light amid the great darkness.”

A spokesperson for Nir Oz also praised Aviad and “all the heroic IDF soldiers” for bringing some hope and light to the community.

“Dogs are a family, and many of the dogs and other animals in our kibbutz were also kidnapped and murdered on Oct. 7,” the spokesperson said. “The great joy of the people of Israel in Billy’s return proves more than anything else how much we all need and wait for such miracles.”

“We still have 59 abductees in Gaza, 14 of them from Nir Oz, and we hope that the next miracle will come with the return of all of them.”

Since Hamas’s attack — in which the Palestinian terrorist group led the massacre of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 251 hostages — well over 100 captives have been released through negotiated ceasefire deals in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian detainees. The Israeli military has also rescued a smaller number through special operations

There are currently 59 hostages still in Hamas’s captivity in Gaza, with over half believed to be dead. As the second phase of the ceasefire agreement was never launched, Israel resumed its military campaign in the enclave to press Hamas into freeing the remaining Israeli hostages.

The latest round of talks in Cairo to restore the ceasefire failed to make any progress, as Hamas insisted that any agreement must lead to an end of the war in Gaza, while Israel maintained it would not cease fighting until Hamas is eliminated, with the terrorist group refusing to lay down its arms.

The post Rescued and Reunited: Dog Kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 Returns Home first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

November 2023: An Israeli soldier helps to provide incubators to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot

What comes to mind when you think of a paramedic who rushes to save innocent people during a war — only to be attacked and detained?

Most people would envision a peaceful individual devoted to saving lives, and instinctively view those who detained him as brutal and unjust. You’re also far more likely to trust his version of events over those who arrested him.

This is precisely the narrative dominating most Western media outlets in their coverage of Asaad al-Nasasra, a paramedic from Gaza. Readers too easily fall into the trap set by biased journalists at The Guardian and other outlets who, as usual, haven’t done their due diligence.

Because just a cursory check of Asaad al-Nasasra’s public Facebook account reveals someone far from the peaceful medic he’s portrayed as.

His posts are filled with incitement to terrorism and praise for Gaza’s “martyrs.” Here are just a few examples.

In a post from May 2021, accompanied by a poster whose design disturbingly echoes Nazi-style antisemitic visuals, al-Nasasra wrote (translated from Arabic):

Muslims today, due to their weakness and shallow understanding of the true essence of religion, are waiting for a miracle from God to destroy their enemies — while their enemies are growing stronger! This is foolishness…

God Almighty said: ‘And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war.’ After you prepare all that you can, say: O Lord, You are the Supporter, You are the Granter of success, You are the Protector, You are the Sustainer. We must take the necessary means as if everything depends on them, then put our trust in God as if they mean nothing. This is the lesson Muslims need today more than at any time in the past. [emphasis added]

We now know all too well what “necessary means” stands for in Gaza: taking hostages and slaughtering civilians, and sacrificing thousands of Gazans, using them as human shields.

Above is another post from this “peaceful” paramedic, written during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021. The phrases on the rockets read (translated from Arabic):

• • اللهم يبّس عظامهم – “O Allah, dry up their bones.”
  • ورمّل نساءهم – “…make their women widows.”
  • ويتم أطفالهم – “…orphan their children.”
  • وانصرنا عليهم – “…and grant us victory over them.”

And one more, from May 13, 2021 (translated from Arabic): “May everyone who struck Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Ashkelon, the Gaza Envelope*, and the occupied territories be well every year. #Every_Year_Our_Resistance_Is_Our_Pride”

It’s crucial to remember that many of those who lived — and were brutally murdered — in the Gaza Envelope were known for being among Israel’s most passionate advocates for a two-state solution and harsh critics of the Israeli government. As Douglas Murray noted during his recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast (timestamp 01:51:05):

So many of them, particularly the people in the south who were attacked on the morning of the 7th, were literally people who dreamed of living in peace with their Palestinian neighbors.

They were people like Vivian Silver, whose body wasn’t identified for months because there wasn’t enough of her charred remains to even extract DNA from. She spent every weekend, like so many people in the southern communities of Israel, driving Palestinian children with rare medical conditions to hospitals.

So what kind of peace deal exactly is expected from Israel when Gaza’s so-called “peaceful paramedics” openly support Hamas, refer to terrorists as “our resistance,” and glorify rocket attacks on the strongest advocates of coexistence?

And this is likely just the cleaned-up version of al-Nasasra’s profile, which features near-daily posts up until late June 2021. One can only imagine what was posted there on or around October 7, 2023.

While the incident involving the Red Crescent ambulances is still under investigation, most Western media outlets continue to prioritize the narratives of Hamas officials and Gazan eyewitnesses. But after everything found on al-Nasasra’s Facebook, it’s hard not to question whether his colleagues share similar views — views that include denying Israel’s right to exist and supporting terrorism.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post What Western Media Won’t Tell You About Palestinian Paramedics in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.