House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) doubled down on President Donald Trump’s statement on Tuesday, saying that plans to strip legal immigration status from and deport pro-Hamas agitator Mahmoud Khalil were “just getting started.”
Johnson made the remarks at a press conference after he was asked whether Khalil had actually committed a crime that warranted his deportation, beginning with a reminder to the press that he had visited Columbia University when Jewish students were being advised to stay away from campus out of concern for their physical safety.
“It was dangerous,” he said. “The administrators refused to take control of that campus. They refused to allow the PD, the police department to come in and take control, and it turned into chaos.”
Johnson noted that even though Columbia brought in a new president, the problem has persisted — and the Trump administration has decided to act where the school will not.
“The first responsibility of an administration is ensuring the safety of the students who are paying tuition to be there. For crying out loud, this madness has to stop. We have to get control of it,” he added.
Johnson went on to note that Khalil had been identified as someone who had been instigating the protests “when the gnashing of teeth and the ripping of clothes and the people screaming at me, wanting to rip me limb from limb because I was there talking about moral clarity and how there’s a right and a wrong, they were doing that.”
“If you’re on a student visa, and you’re in America, and you’re an aspiring young terrorist who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you’re going home. We’re going to arrest your … tail,” Johnson concluded after a pause, prompting a few laughs from those in the room. “And we’re going to send you home where you belong. This is just getting started.”
