One of the most important insights of public policy is the understanding that most laws are predicated upon a (stated or unstated) quid pro quo.
Take, for example, the roiling monthslong debate about President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. Prior to the media uproar over the much-ballyhooed MS-13-tied “Maryland man,” the since-deported Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia, there was a similar hullabaloo surrounding the arrest and initiation of removal proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil, the green card-holding Hamas sympathizer at Columbia University.
Critics said that Khalil never committed an actual black-letter crime—and perhaps he didn’t. But he evinced clear support for at least one State Department-recognized foreign terrorist organization and contributed to a hostile campus environment for Columbia’s besieged Jewish students. In…
