An immigration judge’s ruling allowing the deportation of Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil to proceed hands a victory to the Trump administration in its campaign to purge foreign agitators stirring up hate on America’s college campuses. The judge, Jamee Comans, ruled that Mr. Khalil was removable and that the federal government had met the required legal burden of proof. She gave the anti-Israel student activist until April 23 to appeal.

The decision marks a vindication for the position advanced yesterday by Secretary Rubio, who compared students visiting America on a visa to houseguests. “No one’s entitled to a student visa. The press covers student visas like they’re some sort of birthright,” Mr. Rubio reckoned. “No, a student visa is like me inviting you into my home. If you come into my home and put all kinds of crap on my couch, I’m going to kick you out of my house.”

More broadly, Mr. Rubio reckoned, “if you come to this country as a student, we expect you to go to class and study and get a degree. If you come here to, like, vandalize a library, take over a campus, and do all kinds of crazy things, you know, we’re going to get rid of these people.” So, he concluded, “when we identify lunatics like these, we take away their student visa.” To that end, the State Department has revoked some 300 visas for foreign students studying in America.

In Mr. Khalil’s case, Judge Comans had demanded to see evidence from the federal government before she made her decision about his deportability.  “If he’s not removable, I don’t want him to continue to be detained,” Judge Comans said. “I will have him released.” The government’s response disappointed some activists who had hoped for a meatier dossier verifying the claims being made against Mr. Khalil.

Instead, a memorandum from Mr. Rubio was filed with the court. The document offers a “Notification of Removability Determinations” under the Immigration and Nationality Act. That law allows the deportation of any foreigner if the State secretary “has reasonable ground to believe that the alien’s presence” in America “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

To that end, Mr. Rubio condemned Mr. Khalil’s role in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities,” which foster “a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.” Such conduct, he concluded, served to “undermine U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism” at home and abroad. Mr. Khalil’s actions, too, Mr. Rubio wrote, militate against America’s “efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence.” 

Mr. Rubio appears to have a clear-eyed sense of the stakes involved in allowing foreign activists to run amok on college campuses, despite the rhetoric on the left about shielding these individuals under the cloak of the First Amendment and other constitutional protections. These columns have urged jurists in these disputes to recall Justice Robert Jackson’s caution that “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” 

Jackson, who led the American legal team at the Nuremberg prosecution of Nazi war criminals, was no stranger to the threat posed to the United States and the West by extremist ideologies. Seen in that light, Alan Dershowitz writes in the Sun that “no one should have sympathy for Mr. Khalil as an individual, as an advocate, or as an ideologue.” He adds that his views are “despicable, anti-American, antisemitic, and intolerant of others.” 

As if to underscore the wisdom of Justice Jackson’s insight on the limits of the Constitution’s free speech protections, Mr. Khalil’s comrades on the Columbia campus contend that they are “fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.” What’s the logic of fostering that kind of talk by guests to America? Deporting Mr. Khalil would be a victory for the voices of reason, on campus and off, who grasp the danger posed by such hateful rhetoric.