Trump channels George Washington in the fight to deport Mahmoud Khalil

Mahmoud Khalil wants to take the case against his deportation all the way to the Supreme Court.If the justices accept it, they’ll be deciding one of the oldest and most controversial questions in American politics — a dispute more than 200 years old.Khalil is not an American: He’s a Syrian-born Palestinian, here legally.He’s opposed to the policies of the democratically elected government of our country, and he’s used the freedoms and privileges afforded to him on American soil to agitate for policies that would favor Hamas over Israel.President Donald Trump saw no reason why a guest should be able to undercut his host in this way, so ICE began deportation proceedings — he was taken into custody at Columbia University, where he was a graduate student. And then the courts got involved.A New Jersey judge said ICE had to release Khalil because, in the judge’s opinion, the case against him was likely to fail in the end on First Amendment grounds, and in the meantime he should be free to continue his Palestinian activism. Judges in other cases have ruled noncitizens do have First Amendment free-speech rights, but a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania overturned the earlier decision that released Khalil from detention.The big question still hasn’t been answered: When can America deport a foreign political activist? If Khalil were a Russian demanding America end support for Ukraine, Democrats would in all likelihood be eager to have him expelled — though an administration like Joe Biden’s might look for an espionage angle to justify deportation.Trump’s administration is not looking for pretexts: It’s tackling the principle at the heart of the matter.America’s earliest presidents saw the question the same way Trump does.George Washington famously proclaimed America neutral in the conflict between revolutionary France and Great Britain, but France deployed agents — including its de facto ambassador to America, Edmond-Charles Genêt — to or...