This is the most concerted assault on free speech rights since “the McCarthy Era,” said David Cole, the former legal director of the ACLU and a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

“Here, too, you have a government targeting for retribution and for punishment [to] those with whom it disagrees ― and doing so across the board,” Cole said.

These attacks have largely come through a series of executive orders aimed at eliminating from American life Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; transgender people; support for undocumented immigrants; opposition to Israeli government policies; and, of course, anyone Trump perceives as his enemy. Still others have seen their speech rights assailed by the Trump administration for refusing to abide by an executive order purporting to rename the Gulf of Mexico. Numerous lawsuits have been filed to challenge nearly every one of these orders.

How far the administration is willing to go to assail the First Amendment became clear on Saturday evening when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested, detained and moved to deport Mahmoud Khalil without a warrant for his involvement in the anti-Gaza War protest movement on Columbia University’s campus in 2024. Khalil is a Palestinian citizen and U.S. green card holder, which confers legal rights that foreign visa holders lack.

The Department of Homeland Security, however, labeled him a supporter of terrorism for “activities aligned to Hamas” and now claims to have revoked his green card. A federal judge ordered the administration on Monday that it cannot deport Khalil until courts rule on his case, but the move to deport Khalil is just the beginning of an effort to root out “anti-American activity,” as Trump noted on social media site Monday.

Khalil’s arrest is a “dramatic escalation” in the Trump administration’s campaign to stamp out pro-Palestinian protests by seeking the deportation of student and faculty visa holders who participate or support them, according to Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“This is part of a broader pattern by this administration to target and retaliate against its political opponents based on speech and criticism they disagree with,” Krishnan said.

Trump’s executive orders and actions take aim at decades of First Amendment precedents while attempting to silence the speech of his political opponents. Organizations are cowed by threats to cut off their funding if they speak or associate in terms deemed unfavorable by the administration. Students and university faculty on visas fear speaking or publishing on issues that are disfavored by the administration. A great chill is passing over the country.

Nonprofit groups, universities and corporations have moved quickly to scuttle policies and eliminate wrong-thought from their websites and public facing materials amid threats to revoke federal funding and scare off clients.