The arrest and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil is itself a federal crime. It is also a test of whether people staffing this country's institutions will acquiesce to authoritarianism. Yet those Senators and Representatives who have spoken out at all are treating the overreach as the kind of policy disagreement that arises in normal times. This is what people call bringing a knife to a gunfight.

The Administration imprisoned the legal permanent resident and seeks to deport him because, per Secretary of State Marco Rubio, his "presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences." This came after he was doxxed as a leader of campus protests against Israel's Gaza operation and U.S. enabling of its atrocities. So, he could harm the U.S. by exercising his free speech rights to speak out against current U.S. policy. This is so blatantly unconstitutional that the government soon came up with another bogus, but apolitical, rationale in its court filings.

Donald Trump proclaimed that the action against Mr. Khalil "is the first arrest of many to come." And, indeed, authorities have already quietly taken action against more academics.

Unlike much of the Administration's overreaching, what is happening here is a crime. When officials violate a person's civil rights "under color of law," i.e., by claiming they have the legal right to do so, they are committing a federal offense. (18 U.S.C., section 242.) Conspiracy to do so is a felony. (Section 371.)

When would-be authoritarians try a new power grab, they succeed in becoming despots to the extent that those with the power to resist acquiesce.

Non-acquiescence means more than complaining.

Our Demands

We call upon Congress to treat this latest overreach as the grave threat that it is, by

• Filing briefs opposing the government's action in the federal court hearing Mr. Khalil's habeas corpus petition;
• Summoning FBI Director Kash Patel and calling on him to arrest Mr. Rubio, investigate who else was voluntarily involved in the deportation conspiracy, and review the evidence that ICE agents intimidated Mr. Khalil's wife out of her right to protest their action;
• Call on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute those involved;
• Impeach Mr. Patel and/or Ms. Bondi if either fails to comply, and
• Impeach Mr. Rubio.

Otherwise those in Congress who protest at all are exhibiting the kind of pathetic response to the rise of authoritarianism that looks like opposition but operates to enable it.