The First Leaf to Fall

It can be fun to amuse oneself with the question, “What was the first leaf to fall in autumn?” Similarly, one might ask—though with a far graver sense of foreboding—“Who was the first person to be disappeared by the U.S. government under the Trump Administration?”

Now we have an answer: Mahmoud Khalil.

You might not have heard his name. That’s no accident. As mainstream media increasingly aligns itself with the autocratic impulses of the Trump Administration, stories like this are quietly buried on the back page—if they get any ink at all.

Mahmoud Khalil, a U.S. resident and husband to a U.S. citizen, had just graduated from Columbia University. If you recall, Columbia was recently a flashpoint of resistance against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Khalil was a key figure in that movement, serving as a bridge between university staff and student protesters. The demonstrations were peaceful, yet they enraged Republicans in Congress to such an extent that they pressured Columbia’s president to resign.

The message from these Republicans—joined by a handful of Democrats—was unmistakable: speaking up for Palestinians is equated with antisemitism, and antisemitism is equated with terrorism. By this twisted logic, anyone defending Palestinian rights is labeled a terrorist. And once branded an enemy of the state, the laws meant to protect you no longer apply.

That’s why, when Khalil and his wife returned home to their apartment in Upper Manhattan, plainclothes agents were already waiting. They stormed in, cuffed him, and took him away—to where, no one knew. His wife and lawyer were left in the dark. Days later, the truth emerged: Khalil had been flown to a brutal detention facility in Louisiana, infamous for its treatment of detainees.

This is the kind of horror that has long been routine in places like Egypt, Nicaragua, Syria, and Russia—where people vanish in the night, never to return. Where the disappeared are presumed dead, often after enduring unspeakable torture.

Now, it is happening here.

The grim irony of this first act of barbarism under the new Trump Administration is that it’s being carried out under the guise of combatting antisemitism—even as Elon Musk flashes Nazi salutes, Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon’s new deputy press secretary, spreads antisemitic conspiracies, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new Health and Human Services Secretary, claims COVID-19 was ethnically targeted to spare Jews and Chinese people. Meanwhile, the FBI has announced it will relax investigations into neo-Nazi terrorist cells.

Hypocrisy isn’t a bug in the Republican Party; it’s a feature.

Years from now, when the American people finally rise up and relegate these tyrants to the dark chapters of American history, we will look back and ask: When did the first leaf of this long, cold winter fall?

We already know the answer.

Mahmoud Khalil.

And unless we act, many more leaves will follow.

So say his name. Say the names of all who come after him. Take to the streets. Hold their names high on placards. Let those in power know we see their crimes, that we will not forget, that we will never accept midnight abductions as the new normal.

Because one day, if we fail to resist, that list of disappeared people might include your name.

History is watching. This is our time. This is our fight.