Editor’s Note: On Saturday, March 8, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia University and a lead negotiator on behalf of student activists who protested during the 2023-2024 school year. The controversial detention of Khalil, a green card holder and legal resident, is at the center of attention in the United States as the Trump Administration challenges foreign students based on speech. The commentary below examines the incident from a more profound human-interest perspective. Writer Matt Mikalatos notes the irony that the lead ICE agent is wearing a T-shirt promoting superheroes from the Marvel Pictures Avengers series.
By Matt Mikalatos
One of the odd and ironic things about the case involving ICE agents who showed up at Columbia University to arrest Mahmoud Khalil was the unmistakable vision of one of them wearing an Avengers superhero T-shirt.
For context, I love comics. I once worked in a comic book shop. The Avengers heroes, in particular, inspired. The more I thought about why an ICE agent was detaining a Green Card holder over a speech issue, the sadder I got. The ICE agent has almost certainly wandered off from what he may have loved about his job in the first place.
This comes with the obvious caveat that comics and movie franchises are communal storytelling vehicles—things that bring us together as a society. Their stories often conflict, conflate, and lose continuity. Or, in some cases, they get far, far too much continuity.
Let’s talk about the shirt, the Avengers, and immigration enforcement of the ICE agent who took Khalil one Saturday evening in March. What’s ironic is half the characters on his shirt would not be American citizens if they were real.
Foreigners as Heroes
Black Panther’s T’Challa, obviously, is the king of the fictional, highly advanced, and secretive African nation Wakanda. In his adventures, he tends to just fly his jet into Brooklyn when he feels like it. Then there’s Black Widow. Before she became an Avenger, she was a deep-cover KGB agent. If she had any visa at all, she definitely lied about her identity to obtain it. Meanwhile, Thor is not even from Earth. Nor is he the kind of guy to wait in line at the Asgardian consulate.
This is only to say that this is a T-shirt celebrating as heroes a bunch of foreigners who are probably not completely legal when they are in the United States. In fact, every single person on this shirt broke international borders and immigration law. Literally, all of them.
American Heroes Beyond Borders
It’s not like Captain America applied for a visa before popping over to Germany to fight Nazis. Iron Man flies around in his armor as if borders don’t even exist. The Hulk never waited for a tourist visa before going to Sokovia.
Meanwhile, the movie “Thor: Ragnarok” explores the colonial past and suggests people are more important than borders. At the end of the movie the heroes were like, “Hey, we got to find a new home for all these refugees.” Cue “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin. Now, we have our heroic ending.
Superpowers for the Vulnerable
One of the things I have always loved about superheroes is the fantastic idea that people with enormous power would use it to help those in need. They’re always on the lookout for vulnerable people to help. I could be wrong, but I think that’s a big part of what most people love about superheroes.
So, I feel for this ICE agent, actually. If he’s the guy that people say he is, he made a name for himself in ICE catching sex traffickers. That is pretty amazing and heroic work.
Then, one day, he gets a call to go pick up some guy on a student visa who is supposedly a “terrorist sympathizer” and has had his visa revoked, only to get there and find out he has a green card. To the credit of the agents involved, they called their bosses to relay the news. That suggests to me that they knew, on some level, their detention of him wasn’t right. You can’t arrest a guy for a revoked student visa revoked when he’s no longer relying on that student visa to stay in the country.
Even a brief look into the story, it is clear the government has no evidence of wrongdoing by Khalil. Maybe, just maybe, the agent realized he arrested a lawful permanent resident of the United States because he had the audacity to say, “Please stop killing kids in Gaza.” Somewhere up the chain one of your bosses didn’t like that. So, what are the ICE agents doing? Who are they helping?
What we see here is a slow transformation away from heroism, and that is a danger for all of us. They went from busting people who did intense harm to vulnerable people to serving people harming to vulnerable people.
Someone said once, “With great power comes great responsibility” and that always resonated with you. In the superhero fantasy, the people with power – the heroes – take care of people. In Today’s America, an ICE agent in a hero T-shirt might remember that he has power—more power than he realized.
The question is how to use it.
Matt Mikalatos is an author and screenwriter.
