Debunking LA Times Fascism With Facts
We cannot leave unanswered these 20 published lies about the US Government's illegal abduction of Mahmoud Khalil
As I write this Amnesty reports that Netanyahu has unilaterally broken the January 19 ceasefire, killing 400 Palestinians in Gaza, and hospitalizing 550 more. And as Netanyahu promises to continue bombing Gaza, corporate media like the LA Times is elevating articles further demonizing Palestinians.
In an article titled, “Mahmoud Khalil isn’t a citizen. His deportation wouldn’t be unlawful,” the LA Times publishes a self-described “Pro Jewish nationalist and Christian nationalist.” The author argues for the abolition of due process, argues against our Constitutional principles of equal justice, and horrifyingly, repeats fascist talking points that earlier pundits and politicians used to justify genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes against Jewish people, Japanese Americans, Black Americans, and Indigenous Americans.
The author flat out lies or misrepresents the truth at least 20 times—and the LA Times decided to publish it anyway, without so much as a fact check. Given the LA Times size and influence, that their owner is a pro-Trump billionaire, and given the emails I’ve received from readers asking if what the LA Times piece argues is true—I write today to debunk this fascist propaganda, piece by piece.
Let’s Address This.
This article’s structure is simple. I cite the LA Times claim in bold, then cite the receipts to debunk said claim. I am hopeful you find these receipts valuable in your dialogues to rebuke fascist propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation.
The article begins with a detached intro complaining about the stock market (made volatile but Trump’s trade war), DOGE (which is committing illegal acts), Iran and nuclear weapons (made possible by Trump blowing up the Iran nuclear deal even as IAEA affirmed Iran was compliant), and claiming that Russia and Ukraine are close to a ceasefire (never mind the ramping up of drone strikes). It then finally arrives at its apparent point—demonizing Mahmoud Khalil to justify his illegal abduction and detainment. Brace yourself, because the LA Times propaganda is unhinged.
Claim: Media consumers probably don’t care a lot about whether a Syrian national and Algerian citizen who was the face of last year’s pro-Hamas Columbia University campus riots gets deported.
Fact: On the contrary, immigration ended up being the number 1 issue in the 2024 election. This was mainly because Trump convinced enough voters that immigrants were harming America, when in reality every study—even by the conservative George W. Bush Center—shows that immigrants immensely benefit the United States.
The LA Times then smears Khalil as “the face of pro-Hamas riots.” There’s zero evidence of this claim. If there were evidence, the US Government would have loudly proclaimed it from every media outlet imaginable. But despite repeated requests by dozens of journalists, Khalil’s lawyer, and the public for such evidence, the US Government has provided nothing. Moreover, Jews stood shoulder to shoulder with Khalil during the Columbia protests. Is the LA Times alleging that Jewish people protesting Israel’s occupation of Palestine are terrorists?
Claim: Is it any wonder that only 31% of Americans told Gallup in the fall that they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media?
Fact: I agree it is no wonder that Americans have such a low level of confidence in the media, especially when such media so readily publishes propaganda smearing a peaceful protestor as a terrorist, without a shred of evidence or facts.
Claim: By any metric, Khalil is a wildly unsympathetic figure.
Fact: By every metric, this is false. In reality, Khalil is extremely popular, with the petition calling for his release getting even more signatures than the petition for $2000 stimulus checks. The LA Times purposefully hides Khalil’s popularity, as admitting such facts counters their efforts to dehumanize him.
Claim: The New York Times described him as the “public face of protest against Israel” at Columbia.
Fact: It is laughable that the LA Times first slams legacy media as unreliable and untrusted by the American public, then immediately cites the NY Times to describe Khalil. Moreover, is protesting against injustices committed by a government now criminal? Isn’t the celebration of free speech, even speech you disagree with, the whole point of being a democracy? Apparently, not all free speech critical of a government is free, according to the LA Times.
Claim: He acted as the lead negotiator for a pro-Hamas student group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
Fact: Mahmoud Khalil has remained on record that he never led CUAD, and the US Government has provided zero evidence proving that claim against him. This is what due process of law is supposed to address—and what the Trump regime continues to deny him. (More on this below). No wonder Trump’s claim that he’s had the “most transparent administration ever” received a “Pants on Fire” award.
Claim: Which has referred to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter of Israelis as a “moral, military, and political victory” and asserted that it is fighting for nothing less than “the total eradication of Western civilization.”
Fact: You can read CUAD’s own statement about themselves published in full in the Columbia Spectator. You’ll note their simultaneous condemnation of Islamophobia and antisemitism, as “cut from the same cloth.” Additionally, distasteful speech is still protected free speech. And yet additionally, the US Government has provided zero evidence that Khalil uttered those words, let alone endorsed them.
All of that notwithstanding, I am glad the LA times condemns violence—I do too.
So where is this energy from the LA Times when the Israeli government made violent statements about eradicating Gaza? Statements like “Fighting human animals.” Making Gaza a “slaughterhouse.” “Erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”” And where was this energy when Netanyahu acted on those violent statements with actual mass bombings of hospitals, schools, churches, and mosques? How are reactionary words from CUAD worse than Netanyahu’s violence that mass murders tens of thousands of civilians? The LA Times never explains.
Claim: Even more relevant, Khalil is not a U.S. citizen. He is a green card holder, a “legal alien.” And he can remain on our soil only when the sovereign — in the U.S., that’s “We the People” — consents to it. When we remove our consent, that person can be deported.
Fact: The LA Times assumes that “removing consent” is a whisk of a magical wand that allows kidnapping a person to an undisclosed location by plain clothes Nazis ICE agents without a judicial warrant. In reality, “removing consent” requires due process of law, as guaranteed by the 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. To ignore these obligations is a breathtaking level of corruption, and a blunt declaration that equal justice is no longer a principle of the Western civilization the LA Times piece professes to cherish.
Claim: The power to exclude is a defining feature of what it means to be a sovereign. Emer de Vattel’s highly influential 1758 treatise, “The Law of Nations,” described this power as plenary: “The sovereign may forbid the entrance of his territory either to foreigners in general, or in particular cases, or to certain persons, or for certain particular purposes, according as he may think it advantageous to the state.”
Fact: Why the LA Times is citing Prussian philosopher Emer de Vattel, who died in 1767, before the United States even existed, is beyond me. Obviously, his treatise is not the United States Constitution, not a federal law, and not even written by a Founding Father. In fact, it is wholly irrelevant to Khalil’s case in every conceivable way. Yet, this is only one of two absurd arguments LA Times cites to justify denying Mahmoud Khalil due process of law—the second argument is somehow even worse.
Claim: As the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted in a citation in a 2001 dissent, “Due process does not invest any alien with a right to enter the United States, nor confer on those admitted the right to remain against the national will.”
Fact: The LA Times laughably cites a Supreme Court dissent as evidence that Khalil is being justifiably disappeared. First of all, it is a dissent opinion, meaning the Supreme Court majority already ruled against the disappearing of a non-citizens. Moreover, the case cited, Zadvydas v. Davis, does not contemplate a legal and documented green card holder disappeared without due process. It contemplates when:
An alien has been found to be unlawfully present in the United States, and
A final order of removal has been entered, [and]
the Government fails to remove the alien during those [statutorily required] 90 days.”
None of these three conditions apply to Khalil. Khalil was not unlawfully in the United States. There has never been any order, let alone any final order, of removal entered against him by any court. There was no delay beyond some 90 days the government had to remove him. And even in his dissent, Justice Scalia writes that he refers specifically to “A criminal alien under final order of removal.”
So to recap, the LA Times cites a Prussian philosopher who died before the United States existed and a Supreme Court dissenting opinion that specifically applies to criminal aliens under judicially ordered removal—as evidence that it’s legal, moral, and ethical to disappear and deport a documented green card holder without due process. Is this sheer anti-Arab bigotry or just utter incompetence? Perhaps both.
Claim: It’s quite simple, really: If someone in the U.S. on a tourist visa or in possession of a green card violates the terms of his admission, he can be removed.
Fact: No, it’s not “quite simple,” really. Due process of law exists to make it painstakingly difficult for the US Government to deny us our rights. The Founders, flawed as they were, recognized the harm of tyrannical government, and established the Constitution and Bill of Rights to require the Government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person actually committed a crime before they were deprived of their rights—and only after the judicial branch and a jury of the person’s peers agree.
People can only be removed but with due process of law, as the 5th, 6th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution require. That due process is a detailed process that requires probable cause, a warrant signed and authorized by a judge, Miranda rights, access to legal counsel, a trial by jury, a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, an opportunity to appeal, and an opportunity to appeal again to the Supreme Court.
None of that has been afforded to Mahmoud Khalil.
As a reminder, the 5th Amendment specifically states, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The word employed is “person,” not “citizen.” Unless the LA Times is alleging that Mahmoud Khalil is not a person—which may not be far from what they believe given their dehumanizing rhetoric against Palestinians and Arabs—then Khalil is privileged to 5th Amendment protections, period. Anything short of that undermines the American experiment altogether. That the LA Times continues to push for a denial of due process demonstrates the emptiness of their claim to “uphold Western civilization.”
Claim: Khalil [is] a foreign national who allegedly violated the terms of his sojourn by supporting at least one U.S. State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization.
Fact: Repeatedly claiming that Khalil “allegedly” violated the terms of his green card, without providing any evidence, and while denying due process, means you have elevated falsehood, not affirmed facts. People with integrity tend to happily provide evidence to back up their claims. People committed to propaganda ask readers to believe claims without evidence. The LA Times is sadly engaging in the latter.
Claim: And by making common cause with an organization clamoring more generally for the end of Western civilization.
Fact: Again, Khalil denies he ever led CUAD, there’s no evidence he did, and the US Government has failed to provide any such evidence. The LA Times is effectively announcing they want to punish protected free speech they don’t like.
Claim: The day the United States loses the ability to deport noncitizens who espouse such toxic beliefs is the day the United States ceases to be a sovereign nation-state.
Fact: On the contrary, alleging that US sovereignty rests upon the ability to violate the US Constitution and deport people the US Government doesn’t like without due process is the day the United States ceases to be a functioning democratic republic. And as it seems the LA Times admits it supports such absurdity, perhaps the Fourth Estate truly has fallen.
Claim: The Khalil saga is where we see the intersection of the three toxic anti-Western ideologies. First, there is the “woke” angle.
Fact: I would bet the author of the LA Times article cannot define woke, or only “define” it while espousing anti-Black bigotry. While conservatives are loath to define woke, sometimes they accidentally tell the truth. For example, asked what “woke” means, [Ron Desantis’ General Counsel] Newman said “it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” Imagine being offended at the idea of addressing systemic injustices? Oh the humanity.
Claim: Khalil represented CUAD, which espouses a neo-Marxist oppressor/oppressed dichotomy, and its view of Israel as an “oppressor” underlies Khalil’s repugnant activism.
Fact: Repeating that Khalil “represents CUAD” without evidence doesn’t make your case any stronger, it makes your lie that much bigger. Also, the view that Israel is oppressing Palestinians with an illegal military occupation is not Khalil’s mere opinion, it is established fact as held by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The International Court of Justice, hundreds of UN Resolutions, dozens of international NGOs, and by Israeli human rights organizations like B’TSelem—who refers to the conditions Israel imposes on Palestinians as apartheid.
Claim: Second, there is the Islamist angle: CUAD supports Sunni Islamist outfits such as Hamas.
Fact: Color me surprised that the author of this LA Times piece is also an Islamophobe and historical revisionist. The facts demonstrate that Hamas is not a religious organization, nor is it a proactive organization. It is a violent political reaction to decades of illegal occupation, an occupation that many human rights orgs, including Israeli human rights organizations, are working hard to end.
Claim: Third, there is the global neoliberal angle: Those protesting Khalil’s detention see little distinction between citizen and noncitizen.
Fact: The so-called “little distinction between citizen and noncitizen” when it comes to rights under the US Constitution is from (checks notes) the United States Supreme Court. As is well documented for centuries in the United States:
“Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) guaranteed due process rights not only to newly freed African Americans, but also legal immigrants such as Chinese immigrant Yick Wo. Justice Matthews opined: The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens…. These provisions are universal in their application to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality, and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws [Ref. 11, p 369].”
“Shortly thereafter in Wong Wing v. United States (1896) the Court ruled that, although Wong Wing was an undocumented immigrant detained for unauthorized entry into the country, due process rights applied to him.”
And numerous subsequent Supreme Court cases repeatedly affirm due process rights to all people in this country—citizen or not, documented or not—up through and including the 2001 case the LA Times article cites. But yet, the LA Times wants us to believe that a documented green card holder can be disappeared because the US Government felt like it? Absurd. Simply absurd.
Claim: Khalil’s arrest and detention are thus only in part about Khalil.
Fact: This injustice is about every single person in the United States. If the Constitutional guarantee of due process of law can be arbitrarily stripped for Mahmoud Khalil, then it can be stripped of every single person in this country regardless of their citizenship or documented status. That should horrify anyone who cares about a free democratic republic.
Claim: On Monday, the official X account for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats posted, alongside a corresponding photo, “Free Mahmoud Khalil.” But if those Senate Democrats and Khalil’s myriad other apologists are being honest, they seek not merely to “free” Khalil from President Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Fact: Yes, beyond freeing Khalil from illegal ICE custody, we are trying to free our nation from a fascist regime that does not adhere to the United States Constitution or due process of law. In 2025 the US Government seeks to deport an Arab American green card holder without due process of law by claiming, without evidence, that he’s a terrorist for Hamas. We’ve been here before, as much as the LA Times wants to pretend otherwise. Here are the receipts they refuse to acknowledge:
In 1942 the US Government denied thousands of Jewish refugees due process of law by claiming without evidence that they were secret Nazi spies.
Also in 1942 the US Government denied more than 100,000 Japanese Americans due process of law and locked them into concentration camps by claiming without evidence that they were spies for the Empire of Japan.
In 1927 the US Government enforced Virginia’s Eugenical Sterilization Act, which forced sterilization of more than 60,000 Black children, women, and men nationwide by claiming obviously without evidence that Black people are inferior.
In 1830 the US Government enforced the Indian Removal Act, ethnically cleansing Indigenous Americans from their lands by claiming without evidence that they were harmful to white people, and the following year in 1831 passed legislation barring Indigenous people from suing when the US Government broke its treaties, once again denying due process of law.
And this horrid list goes on. We’ve been here before. We cannot and will not go back.
Claim: Rather, they seek to free [Mahmoud Khalil] — and all of us — from the shackles of Western civilization itself.
Fact: The only persons trying to “free” the United States from the “shackles of Western civilization” are those who want to undermine our US Constitution and justify disappearing a person without due process of law. In reality, the Constitution doesn’t shackle the American people, or anyone in America—it shackles the Government from engaging in tyranny and oppression against any person within its jurisdiction. It protects all people within US jurisdiction from having their rights removed without due process of law. If we forsake this principle, we forsake American democracy altogether—as we’ve already seen happen with Japanese Americans, Jewish people, Black Americans, and Indigenous Americans, among many other minority communities throughout our history. And now, apparently, the LA Times wants to repeat that horror with Arab Americans. What a cowardly position the LA Times has published.
Conclusion
The LA Times' reckless publication of blatant propaganda is yet another reminder that corporate media is not here to inform—it is here to manipulate. When a newspaper with the reach and influence of the LA Times elevates fascist rhetoric, smears a man without evidence, and actively justifies the erosion of due process, it ceases to be journalism and becomes state-sponsored disinformation. It’s one more reason why I ask for your support to help push back against these destructive narratives.
If we don’t push back, this won’t stop at Mahmoud Khalil. We have seen this before—as described above—and the pattern is clear: dehumanization, criminalization, and then, with the public sufficiently primed, outright genocide. That’s how fascism takes hold. And this is why we cannot allow this disinformation to go unchallenged.
Our Constitution guarantees due process of law for a reason. It exists to shield the vulnerable from government overreach and political persecution. If we let this slide because we think it does not affect us, we are signing off on our own silence when the next person—maybe someone we love—is labeled an “enemy” and stripped of their rights without evidence.
We do not have to accept this and we are not powerless—at least not yet. We can hold these institutions accountable, demand facts over propaganda, and refuse to let disinformation dictate our democracy. The fight for justice is ongoing, but history shows us that when we organize, resist, and refuse to back down—we win.
Let us make sure that, once again, we win, and save Western civilization by upholding justice and due process, not fear and hate.
I canceled my subscription after LA Times cowardly pulled its Harris endorsement. I wish I could double-cancel. Shame on them. I feel for some of the excellent journalists who have been there for many years. They must be humiliated with the Times sycophancy
Thank you Qasim. I hope this post reaches far & wide. You, and hopefully many who read this speak Truth to Power. We are all vulnerable if our country doesn’t protect our constitutional rights.