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 months-long debate about President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. Think back to the arrest and initiation of removal proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil, the green card-holding pro-Palestinian organizer at Columbia University. Critics said that Khalil never committed an actual black-letter crime — and perhaps he didn’t. But the government has argued he supported the foreign terrorist organization Hamas and contributed to a hostile campus environment for Columbia’s besieged Jewish students. Doing so could abuse the terms of his noncitizen legal permanent residence and forfeit his right to be here.
We might view it this way: If Khalil violated his implicit “quid,” he lost his corresponding “quo.”
Many similar examples abound throughout our…
