The government’s detention and threatened deportation of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil is a five-alarm fire for freedom of speech in the U.S. Instead of claiming that Mr. Khalil engaged in criminality, the government says it wants to deport him because it doesn’t like what he said.

The “wrong” for which the speaker is being detained, according to a White House spokesman, is “mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the U.S.”

The focus is on disfavored speech as a tool to deport people in our country legally. In particular, I am struck by the statement of a White House official that “the allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” as a reporter from The Free Press was told.

I am as concerned as anyone about the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. and abroad, and I may not agree with everything Mr. Khalil has said and done. However, fighting antisemitism must not become a pretext for suppressing free speech.

History demonstrates that an attack on civil liberties that begins with a target like Mr. Khalil does not end there. This moment must not become the leading edge of an effort to steamroll civil liberties in America. It is not too late for courts, Congress or government officers to have a rethink and save us from the slippery slope to ending free speech in America.

Sanford Lewis

Amherst