UNITED24 - Make a charitable donation in support of Ukraine!

Military


Outside Agitators

"How does a 'news' organization like MSNBC do a 2 minute segment on campus protests, mention 'outside agitators' & not even bother to investigate the organizations running these protests who PUT THEIR NAMES ALL OVER THE PROTEST SIGNS?" Arthur Treacherous [self described "Actor, restaurateur, entrepreneur, punk rocker. Russophobic & MAGAphobic."] asked 01 May 2024. "Legit media has always shied away from giving coverage to the extreme fringes because it only spotlights those groups. For example the LaRouchies. But these groups have now cracked into the mainstream of US political discourse on this issue & there’s no ignoring them."

Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Edward A. Caban on 02 May 2024 released additional details surrounding the arrests of 282 individuals two days ago who participated in violent protests and unlawful conduct at Columbia University and The City College of New York (CCNY). On April 30, 112 individuals were arrested at a protest at Columbia ; approximately 29 percent of these individuals were not affiliated with Columbia. Also, on April 30, 170 individuals were arrested at a protest at CCNY; 60 percent of these individuals were not affiliated with CCNY.

"We were well aware, based on a series of observations, that what should have been a peaceful protest that is part of the constitutional rights of Americans has clearly been co-opted, a right which this administration supports and defends to voice your concern. We have also, we’ll continue, and we have sounded the alarm numerous times before about external actors who are attempting to hijack this protest.... They are actively creating serious public safety issues at these protests. Maybe some of the students involved don't understand what they are involved in." New York City mayor Eric Adams said 30 April 2024.

"This group and the individuals we're going to, one that we're going to show, is an outside agitator with a history of escalating situations and trying to create chaos. It is our belief we are now actively co-opting what should be a peaceful gathering. This is to serve their own agenda. They're not here to promote peace or unity or allow a peaceful displaying of one's voice, but they're here to create discord and divisiveness."

Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner, Intelligence and Counterterrorism, Police Department, stated "these protests have been and are being influenced by external actors who are unaffiliated with universities, some of whom have been known to our department and others for many years for their dangerous, disruptive, and at times criminal activity associated with protests for years. This is not about what's happening overseas. It's not about the last seven months. It's about a very different commitment to, at times, violent protest activity as an occupation.

"A number of university partners have reported to us in New York and also across the country that significant portions of their protestor populations are unaffiliated with their schools. They haven't got a right to be on campus and this violates university policies. Most importantly, it presents dangers to students and to the whole university communities where it's happening.

"Second, we see an escalation in tactics. When we see what we saw last night, I'm going to show you a few examples and they exemplify some of the behavior that we're seeing in a much more holistic way. We think these tactics are a result of guidance that's being given to students from some of these external actors. We see individuals in black bloc attire scaling buildings, breaking into windows, barricades being made out of furniture, or being dragged from the lawn into Hamilton Hall, cameras that have been destroyed. There's only one reason to destroy a camera. It's certainly not something anyone is taught to do in school. De-arresting tactics being encouraged, property destruction, signs being fortified into shields, reports of physical altercations between individuals and other forms of intimidation. This has gone to the next level and we have real cause for concern. "

It was reported by the Publica that the “leaders” of the pro-Palestine student protests released internal guidance on how to occupy college campuses and engage in other criminal activities. The Washington Free Beacon also discovered that far-left activist groups and Islamic organizations are pressing American politicians to block a bipartisan proposal to strip tax-exempt status from nonprofits that provide material support to terrorist organizations.

Multiple communist groups met on May 7, 2024, at Revolution Books in Harlem, Manhattan, and discussed “gathering forces for revolution,” the Epoch Times reported. “Nobody is an outsider when it comes to fighting injustice. Everybody has a right and responsibility to do that. And we need to bring to them the way out of this mess, where it’s coming from and why it can be ended. And how it can be ended in a real revolution. And the fact that right now is a time when revolution is more possible. This is something we need to seize on,” Carl Dix, a representative of the Revolutionary Communist Party, said. One of the groups, Revolutionary Internationalist Youth (RIY), took credit for participating in many of the protests that are happening all around the country.

“Strike committees are necessary to mobilize nationwide for a coordinated strike. It can be the spark that spreads a fire more broadly in society, crucially to the labor movement which has the power to stop arms shipments,” another pamphlet written by Marxist newspaper Workers Vanguard titled “Escalate the Struggle! National Student Strike to Free Palestine” stated.

During the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, "outside agitators" referred to individuals who traveled from other regions to support local civil rights efforts. These activists came from various backgrounds and often belonged to organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), or were affiliated with religious groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), led by figures such as Martin Luther King Jr.

Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew spoke 01 April 1968 of outside agitators, saying "I think you know them as well as I — you've seen them functioning. I'm referring to certain members of the NAACP. A Mr. Brown, I think, is the name of one. I'm referring to the Howard Uni- versity students, who have no business on the Bowie State campus. It wasn't a social visit they made; it was a visit for the purpose of causing this disturbance. Those are outside influences. I don't consider them to be good outside influences. Mrs. Rice from the Prince George's County NAACP. I've had other wires from other individuals whom I won't bother to designate at this moment."

It was a time of marked social unrest and Governor Agnew became increasingly outspoken on law and order issues, blaming the disturbances in Cambridge and Baltimore on outside agitators and inadequate community leadership. Initially a supporter of Nelson Rockefeller, Agnew was selected by Richard Nixon as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate in 1968. He was inaugurated as vice president in 1969 and re-elected in 1972. On October 10, 1973, while under investigation for corruption, Agnew resigned as vice president, entering a plea of nolle contendere which was accepted.

Many of these "outside agitators" were students, clergy, or activists who believed in the principles of racial equality and justice and traveled to places like the American South to participate in protests, sit-ins, voter registration drives, and other forms of civil disobedience. Every one who has ever stimulated a rebellion by sending in outside agitators or “focos" in the past has claimed that the rebellion was a spontaneous act of the people already legitimately present, but there has always been reason to discount and suspect this as propaganda.

Some notable examples of "outside agitators" include:

  1. Freedom Riders: Activists, both black and white, who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court decisions that ruled segregated buses unconstitutional.
  2. Northern activists who traveled to the South to participate in events like the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
  3. James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo: Two white civil rights activists from outside the South who were killed while participating in civil rights activities in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.
  4. Many volunteers who joined voter registration drives in states like Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964, organized by groups like the SNCC and CORE.

While some local authorities and segregationists used the term "outside agitator" to dismiss the legitimacy of the civil rights movement, activists viewed their involvement as essential to challenging systemic racism and advancing the cause of equality.

They were black and white, young and old, men and women. In the spring and summer of 1961, they put their lives on the line, riding buses through the American South to challenge segregation in interstate transport. Their story is one of the most celebrated episodes of the civil rights movement, yet a full-length history has never been written until now. In these pages, acclaimed historian Raymond Arsenault provides a gripping account of six pivotal months that jolted the consciousness of America. The Freedom Riders were greeted with hostility, fear, and violence. They were jailed and beaten, their buses stoned and firebombed. In Alabama, police stood idly by as racist thugs battered them. When Martin Luther King met the Riders in Montgomery, a raging mob besieged them in a church.

In the White House, the Kennedys were just awakening to the moral power of the civil rights struggle, In the cells of Mississippi's infamous Parchman Prison, Riders tormented their jailers with rousing freedom anthems. Along the way, dynamie figures such as James Farmer, Diane Nash, John Lewis, and Fred Shuttlesworth, demonstrated improbable, almost unbelievable heroic sacrifice and unexpected triumph. The Riders were widely eriticized as reckless provocateurs, or "outside agitators." But indelible images of their courage, broadcast to the world by a newly awakened press, galvanized the movement for racial justice across the nation.

On 21 May 1961, a proclamation was issued by Governor John Patterson, declaring a state of martial rule in Montgomery, "as a result of outside agitators coming into Alabama to violate our laws and customs" which has led to "outbreaks of lawlessness and mob action." The proclamation stated that "the Federal Government has by its actions encouraged these agitators to come into Alabama to foment disorder and breaches of the peace ..."

In 1958, George Wallace ran against John Patterson in his first gubernatorial race. Wallace refused to make race an issue, and declined the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. Wallace won the support of the NAACP. Patterson embraced Klan support and won the election. Wallace later said "I was out-niggered, and I will never be out-niggered again." In 1964 Wallace wrote a constituent that "we have never had a problem in the South except in a few very isolated instances and these have been the result of outside agitators." Wallace asserted that "I personally have done more for the Negroes of the State of Alabama than any other individual," citing job creation and the salaries of black teachers in Alabama. He rationalized segregation as "best for both races," writing that "they each prefer their own pattern of society, their own churches and their own schools — which history and experience have proven are best for best for both races. ( ... outside agitators have created any major friction occurring between the races.)

Columnist Art Buchwald, in his own inimitable way, pointed out in an August 1963 column that discrimination comes in varying sizes and shapes. "Our women were very happy to sit in the balcony until outside agitators from the North came down here and started causing trouble. Women prefer to be together. That's why they have women's colleges and women's magazines. We've always treated our women good, but they wouldn't know what to do with equal rights if we gave it to them."

By 1965, African Americans in the United States had possessed the right to vote for almost a hundred years. However, Black citizens attempting to vote encountered often insurmountable barriers. Civil rights workers had long recognized that the right to vote was central to achieving full citizenship. In the 1950s and 1960s, many civil rights organizations turned to mass demonstrations and nonviolent acts of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King, Jr. became internationally known for promoting, supporting, and participating in nonviolent disobedience. On 07 March 1965, television programs were interrupted with shocking images of African-American men and women being beaten with billy clubs in a cloud of tear gas. They were attempting to march peacefully from the small town of Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. A resolution passed by the Alabama State Senate decryied the role of outside agitators and asking all “loyal citizens of the State” to avoid the march route.

In the aftermath of the nationwide urban riots of the Summer of 1967, the police tended to lay blame for them on outside agitators, yet a majority rejected a greater show of force to maintain inner city control. Black Americans took to the streets to publicly express their historical grievances with white power structures. Scapegoats appear from everywhere. Instead of wretched housing and stifling unemployment, outside agitators and wily Communists are said to be the most important causes.

Protestors, from the YIPPIES - the Youth International Party, to MOBE - the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam made plans to come to Chicago for the August 1968 Democratic National Convention. Confrontation between protestors and Chicago policemen and the National Guard occurred throughout convention week. During the night of the actual democratic nomination, network TV aired scenes of law enforcement officers beating protestors in the streets as they chanted "the whole world is watching." The whole world was watching and was sickened. In September 1968, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley claimed the violence was a result of outside agitators, who provoked police and disobeyed rules. On March 20, 1969, the grand jury returned indictments on eight demonstrators: David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, John Froines, and Bobby Seale. The trial of the Chicago Seven began on September 24, 1969 and lasted thirteen months.

On 02 September 2020, top congressional Republicans blamed the mayor of Washington, DC, for recent skirmishes in the nation's capital involving protesters demanding racial justice. The ranking Republicans on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees — Jim Jordan (Ohio) and James Comer (Ky.), respectively — wanted DC Mayor Muriel Bowser to produce documents pertaining to how the city handled what the Republicans described as "left-wing agitators," according to a letter the GOP duo sent to the Democratic mayor. "Like other Democrat-run cities, the District of Columbia (D.C.) under your leadership has allowed radical left-wing violent extremists to commit senseless acts of violence and destruction," the letter stated. "By your inaction in response to their mayhem, these left-wing agitators have become emboldened to be even more aggressive and more dangerous."

Bowser later said the agitators were outsiders who "came together to create havoc" and were separate from the peaceful March on Washington that took place on the National Mall. "What we're certainly not going to do is stand by and allow outside agitators to come to our city to distract us from the work of D.C. residents," Bowser said. "We know the President considers himself Mr. Law and Order... We are for law and order, too."

The Minneapolis city government reported "In 2020, the community of 18th Ave and Little Earth, located in East Philips neighborhood in central Minneapolis experienced new challenges presented by the civil unrest following the death of George Floyd. The area, located just three blocks north of Lake Street where the majority of the destruction took place experienced a persistent increase in safety concerns due criminal activity, sales of illicit drugs, gun violence, speeding and other factors brought on due to an increase of outside agitators. Historically, this area where the majority of the civil unrest had occurred is also the city’s poorest area with 48 percent of people living in poverty and is designated as an Area of Concentrated Poverty (ACP50s)"

On April 22, 2024 Congresswoman Elise Stefanik led a letter to Columbia University President Dr. Minouche Shafik urging her to resign for failing to put an end to an unsanctioned mob of students and agitators involved in "documented incidents of despicable antisemitic harassment and calls for violence and terrorism against Jewish students" on Columbia’s campus. "Your failure to enforce the rules on campus has created an environment in which students and outside agitators know they are able to operate with impunity and without any accountability. While the rot is systemic, the responsibility rests squarely on your shoulders. It is time for Columbia University to turn the page on this shameful chapter. This can only be done through the restoration of order and your prompt resignation.” Rep. Stefanik was joined by Reps. Tenney, Lawler, Malliotakis, Langworthy, D’Esposito, Williams, LaLota, Garbarino, and Molinaro.

Mahmoud Khalil

Mahmoud KhalilMahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student activist at Columbia University, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at his apartment complex home, itself owned by Columbia University, on March 8, 2025.

A U.S. legal permanent resident, he was arrested and threatened first with having his student visa revoked. Upon being told that he was a legal permanent resident and thus holder of a green card, ICE officials changed their rationale and stated that they would be revoking this document instead.

The White House on 11 March 2025 justified President Trump's deportation policy under the pretense that they were looking to "find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again."

In addition, Trump argued that pro-Palestinian protestors were "troublemakers. They're agitators. They don't love our country. We ought to get them the hell out."

As of that date, Khalil was still being detained, and had yet to be charged with any criminal offense.

By law, Green Card holders like Mahmoud Khalil are entitled to due process before having their permanent residency taken away. As stated on the LAWFARE blog:

"ICE attorneys, under the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), bear the burden of demonstrating by clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence that an individual is deportable from the United States. When they seek to do so for a legal permanent resident, they must assert certain grounds that would cause an individual to lose their green card. One cannot simply be stripped of their residency, even by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. (...)

Once the government has initiated proceedings by filing an NTA, it will need to assert a specific ground for removal. While many believe that LPR status provides permanent protection against deportation, it does not. There are many reasons for which an individual can lose their green card and be deported from the United States. (...) In reality, legal permanent residence is a much more precarious status than citizenship, which can be lost only through voluntary renunciation or denaturalization, a process that the federal government may pursue if an individual obtained citizenship through fraud or mistake."

LAWFARE does point out that

"Most pertinent to this case, ICE can also allege inadmissibility based on national-security-related grounds, collectively known as Terrorism-Related Inadmissibility Grounds (TRIG bars). An individual who has already gained legal permanent residency can also be found deportable for these terrorism-related grounds. In general, this statute is "breathtaking in its scope."However, the type of terrorist activity that it describes is unlikely to encompass the political speech in which Khalil has participated. The TRIG provision requires engaging in or inciting terrorist activity, being the representative of a terrorist organization, or being the spouse or child of someone found inadmissible under these grounds. Terrorist activities include hijacking, kidnapping, violent attacks, or threats to commit any of these acts. Finally, the TRIG bar can apply to those who endorse or espouse terrorist activities or encourage others to endorse or espouse terrorist activities. While Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization since 1997, there is no indication that Khalil has any direct connection to the organization, apart from vague accusations from various members of the Trump administration. Despite allegedly "leading activities aligned to Hamas," there is no evidence that Khalil has provided any support to the organization, or, at least, the government has yet to provide it. Rather, it appears that he is being targeted for his political speech."

The U.S. Bill of Rights protects free speech and the right to assemble, and thus it is not a criminal offense to disagree, even openly, with the U.S. government's policy or actions. Khalil's lawyer has argued that he "was identified, targeted, detained and is being processed for deportation on account of his advocacy for Palestinian rights", and thus exercising his protected right to free speech.

Secretary of State Rubio has conversely argued that "this is not about free speech" with President Trump claiming Khalil supported Hamas. The apparent legal rationale to justify revoking Khalil's green card would then rest on a determination by Secretary of State Rubio under the Cold War-era McCarran-Walter Act of a foreign polity threat to the United States.

Under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 (also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act), the Secretary of State can make a determination that "an alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable." In this case, political speech would serve as the basis for deportability. Rarely used, the invoking of this act has limitations additional notifications obligations to the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees and the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees.

References:





NEWSLETTER
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list