The Unwelcome Guest

Now, I ain’t one to meddle in courtroom affairs, nor do I make a habit of wagging my finger at fellas from other lands. But there comes a time when common sense, like a rooster on Sunday morning, starts crowing loud enough to wake even the sleepiest soul in the valley. It’s a tale not spun from imagination–but plucked from the ripe and ridiculous tree of modern reality–a tree whose roots are a tangle of red tape and whose fruit tastes curiously like hubris.

There once was a man named Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University, which is a place so highfalutin’ in reputation that it’s a wonder they let the pigeons land there. Khalil, a man of foreign birth and lofty ideals, came to these United States not by accident–but by invitation–a guest at the table, if you will. And like any guest, he was expected to wipe his feet at the door, say “thank you” now and again, and not spit in the soup.

Instead of minding his manners, Mr. Khalil took to the streets with a crowd that seemed less interested in learning and more interested in shouting things that could curdle milk. The protests he joined—against Israel and the war in Gaza—weren’t so much peaceful persuasion as they were a good holler that rattled windows and riled tempers. Don’t mistake me–for the Constitution grants every man the right to speak his piece–but it’s wrong when a guest cheers for the folks shooting arrows at the host’s house.

Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans, no doubt spectacles lowered on the bridge of the nose, declared Mr. Khalil a national security risk–a label not tossed around lightly, like a sack of flour. Comans said his presence bore “potentially serious foreign policy consequences,” which is government talk for “he’s stirring up a hornet’s nest we can’t afford to poke.”

And with that, the wheels of deportation began to turn. But oh, what a tangled mess!

Mr. Khalil’s lawyers, slicker than a greased weasel, hollered to a federal judge in New Jersey, who threw a wrench in the works and halted the deportation like a brakeman slamming the lever on a downhill train. The claim? Why, that Mr. Khalil was not just a student but a citizen, which raised eyebrows and questions alike since no one’s quite sure whether he’s a guest or the fella who now owns the house.

To add a twist, Secretary of State Marco Rubio dusted off a statute older than Aunt Lottie’s biscuit recipe–a law that lets him send folks packing if they’re considered a danger to Uncle Sam’s foreign affairs. It’s a rare move, like finding a buffalo nickel in a gum machine, but one he insists is necessary to keep the porch light burning for the right kind of visitors.

Meanwhile, in a courtroom far from Columbia’s ivy-covered walls, another man—Kilmar Abrego Garcia—was deported by a supposed mistake and now languishes in a grim El Salvadorian prison as the government wrings its hands and mutters “We’re working on it” like a handyman with no tools. Judge Paula Xinis, clearly unimpressed, demanded to know where the man was and what was getting done to haul him back.

And not to be outdone, yet another federal judge named Dabney Freidrich ruled that immigration agents can still bust down the doors of houses of worship if they get the notion—so long as they do so with “discretion” and a lick of “common sense.” The clergyfolk cried foul, saying it violated their religious freedoms, but the court ruled that a handful of raids doesn’t make a pattern, and besides, churches are no longer off-limits when fugitives are hiding in the pews.

So here we are, in a time where the line between guest and squatter grows blurrier than a saloon mirror at midnight. And I say this not out of meanness but with the wisdom of a man who has worn thin his welcome—folks who come to this country with a promise in their pockets oughtn’t to wave the flag of our enemies, be it in the square, the classroom, or the confines of their cozy apartments.

While the welcome mat remains in the Land of Liberty—it ain’t a doormat.