Trump Tries to Deport a U.S. Nonprofit CEO
Center to Counter Digital Hate talks too much about hate speech on Musk's platform
A bizarre legal drama that played out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day demonstrates just how far the Administration will go to shut down nonprofit organizations whose speech the Administration hates. And just how far over backwards the Administration will bend to satisfy the wealthiest political patron on earth.
Last Tuesday, the State Department announced visa bans against foreign people associated with European and U.S. NGOs (five altogether) that monitor hate speech on the internet. A lot of the monitoring is directed towards the platform formerly known as Twitter. The very next day, Christmas Eve, Secretary of State Marco Rubio — aka “Lil” — said State intends to deport one such alleged rabble-rouser, a lawful permanent U.S. resident, from his New York home where he lives with his U.S. citizen wife and U.S. citizen kids. He’s pictured above.
Everybody knows what “deport” means to Rubio’s version of Mussolini. It means snatch somebody off the street and “render” them somewhere real bad without any process and before anybody even knows they are late being where they said they would be. Like that poor fella, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Except the target in this case, who is also a British Citizen and CEO of a domestic nonprofit involved in monitoring online hate, filed an emergency petition in the SDNY. On Christmas Eve, no less. His petition asserts that the Government is about to give him the Kilmar treatment. The petition asks the judge to enjoin the Government. Read the complaint and the Memorandum of Law here. From the complaint:
On December 23, 2025, on the day before Christmas Eve, just one hour before this Court closed for the holidays, the Trump Administration announced that it would move to deport Plaintiff Imran Ahmed, an advocate for human rights and civil liberties online, and a British legal permanent resident of the United States who has lived and worked here for five years with his American wife and American child.
Rather than disguise its retaliatory motive, the federal government was clear that Mr. Ahmed is being “SANCTIONED” as punishment for the research and public reporting carried out by the nonprofit organization that Mr. Ahmed founded and runs, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (“CCDH”), which studies the content moderation policies of major social media companies, including Elon Musk’s company, X Corp.
In other words, Mr. Ahmed faces the imminent prospect of unconstitutional arrest, punitive detention, and expulsion for exercising his basic First Amendment rights. The government’s actions are the latest in a string of escalating and unjustifiable assaults on the First Amendment and other rights, one that cannot stand basic legal scrutiny. Simply put, immigration enforcement—here, immigration detention and threatened deportation—may not be used as a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express views disfavored by the current administration.
The government’s shocking actions against Mr. Ahmed form part of a larger pattern of attempted repression of constitutionally protected speech. In case after case, the federal government has sought to use its immigration enforcement power as a bludgeon to silence voices and prevent disfavored speech. Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, and Badar Khan Suri, as just a few examples, all legally present noncitizens, were each arrested in retaliation for their protected speech and forced to endure unlawful detention, often thousands of miles away from their families.
Only God knows how hard it must be to get a federal judge to do anything on Christmas Eve. Somebody had to know someone just to know how to get the judge on the phone. But don’t you know that the target’s lawyers convinced a judge to issue a TRO? And get this. The judge signed the order at 12:01 am on Christmas day. I tell you what, I’ll have some of whatever those lawyers are having.
But you have to know the whole story to really appreciate this rare triumph of law and due process. I told you more than two years ago that Elon Musk was “about to get anti-slapped.” Musk sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate alleging a bogus shrink wrap breach of contract action. He claimed that as an X subscriber CCDH entered a contract with X prohibiting its use of X content for improper purposes. And that by issuing a report saying the platform formerly known as Twitter tolerated and profited from hate speech, CCDH breached the contract. After CCDH issued its offending report, a lot of advertisers stopped buying ads on X. Musk got mad and told his lawyers to “find a cause of action, got dammit!” So his lawyers came up with breach of contract.
It was pretty obvious, as I reported, that the case would be dismissed under California’s anti-SLAPP law. Anti-Slapp laws allow for early dismissal of nuisance suits designed to force a speaker to either shut up or defend against a frivolous but expensive lawsuit.
Musk even went after CCDH’s tax exempt status separately, claiming CCDH was operating for private benefit, among other (c)(3) violations. Predicting that the case would be dismissed was about as difficult as predicting that it might snow this year in Canada, but I still want all my credit for saying that Musk would get anti-slapped. Anyway, CCDH got the case dismissed and then thoroughly and rightfully bragged about it. The case is pending before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but Musk has a better chance of getting elected President in 2028.
CCDH just keeps winning and the man with more money than all but a few countries really hates that. Two years ago, shortly before Musk sued CCDH in California, the European Union opened an investigation into whether X violated the EU’s Digital Protection Act. The investigation commenced largely because of CCDH’s reports concluding that Musk tolerates and profits from hate speech. The report concluded, for example, that after Musk purchased Twitter, the word “nigger” appeared three times as often on X as it did before Musk purchased it. Earlier this month, the EU fined X €120,000,000 (about $140,000,000) not for that content, exactly, but because of transparency violations and false representations.
Lil Marco reacted bizarrely and no doubt after an irate phone call from Musk, himself, less than 20 days later. And even though the State Department banned fiduciaries of other anti-hate speech organization too, this is mostly about Elon and CCDH. The other organizations have also been like an aggravating hair on one of Musk’s eyeballs but without the spectacular success achieved by CCDH. Here is part of Rubio’s absurd announcement:
The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose. These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states—in each case targeting American speakers and American companies. As such, I have determined that their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.
Based on these determinations, the Department has taken steps to impose visa restrictions on agents of the global censorship-industrial complex who, as a result, will be generally barred from entering the United States. Further, based on the foreign policy determination, the Department of Homeland Security can initiate removal proceedings against certain individuals pursuant to INA section 237(a)(4)(C), which renders such individuals deportable.
Now there is a fine piece of doublespeak for you. Accusing and punishing a speaker for saying things that you don’t want them to say and then claiming with a straight face that the punished party opposes free speech. That, though, is consistent with the Administration’s approach to Civil Society.
This isn’t about free speech, GTFOH. As the complaint asserts, it’s about using the immigration laws and threatening Civil Society because Musk hates Civil Society. It’s about kicking out anybody who can theoretically be kicked out if he talks too damn much. In a remarkable articulation of high level redneck-ism, a State Department spokesperson even stated that the “United States is under no obligation to allow foreign aliens to come to our country or reside here.” Especially those who say stuff the Administration doesn’t want Americans to hear. There was no mention of a “frontal assault” on free speech in the State Department statement made in response to the TRO. And the only “foreign aliens” being targeted are the ones Musk, himself a “foreign alien,” wishes would shut up.
I’ll tell you one more thing. An administration this brazen that it would deport a lawful permanent resident who leads a talkative U.S. nonprofit . . . ain’t that far off from turning on its own.