Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported, immigration
judge rules
[April 12, 2025]
By SARA CLINE and KATE BRUMBACK
JENA, La. (AP) — Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can
be forced out of the country as a national security risk, an immigration
judge in Louisiana ruled Friday after lawyers argued the legality of
deporting the activist who participated in pro-Palestinian
demonstrations.
The government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the U.S. posed
“potentially serious foreign policy consequences” satisfied requirements
for deportation, Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans said at a hearing in
Jena.
Comans said the government had “established by clear and convincing
evidence that he is removable.”
After the immigration court hearing, Khalil attorney Marc Van Der Hout
told a New Jersey federal judge that Khalil will appeal to the Board of
Immigration Appeals within weeks.
“So nothing is going to happen quickly,” he said.
Addressing the judge at the end of the immigration hearing, Khalil
recalled her saying at a hearing earlier in the week that “there's
nothing more important to this court than due process rights and
fundamental fairness."
“Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were
present today or in this whole process,” he added. "This is exactly why
the Trump administration has sent me to the court, 1,000 miles away from
my family."
Van Der Hout, also criticized the hearing's fairness.
“Today, we saw our worst fears play out: Mahmoud was subject to a
charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair
hearing, and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent,"
Van Der Hout said in a statement.
Khalil, a legal U.S. resident, was detained by federal immigration
agents March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first
arrest under President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on students who
joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
Within a day, he was flown across the country to an immigration
detention center in Jena, far from his attorneys and wife, a U.S.
citizen due to give birth soon.
Khalil’s lawyers have challenged the legality of his detention, saying
the Trump administration is trying to block free speech protected by the
First Amendment.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited a rarely used statute to
justify Khalil’s deportation, which gives him power to deport those who
pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the
United States.”
At Friday’s hearing, Van Der Hout told the judge that the government’s
submissions to the court prove the attempt to deport his client “has
nothing to do with foreign policy” and said the government is trying to
deport him for protected speech.
[to top of second column]
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Human rights attorney Sabrine Mohamed reads a message from Mahmoud
Khalil, the Columbia University activist facing deportation for his
role in pro-Palestinian campus protests, after his immigration
hearing, outside the Central Louisiana Ice Processing Center in
Jena, La., Friday, April 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Khalil, a Palestinian born and raised in Syria after his
grandparents were forcibly removed from their ancestral home in
Tiberias, isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at
Columbia.
The government, however, has said noncitizens who participate in
such demonstrations should be expelled from the country for
expressing views that the administration considers to be antisemitic
and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that
attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Khalil, a 30-year-old international affairs graduate student, had
served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists at
Columbia University who took over a campus lawn last spring to
protest Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The university summoned police to dismantle the encampment after a
small group of protesters seized an administration building. Khalil
is not accused of participating in the building occupation and
wasn’t among those arrested.
But images of his maskless face at protests and his willingness to
share his name with reporters have drawn scorn from those who viewed
the protesters and their demands as antisemitic. The White House
accused Khalil of “siding with terrorists” but has yet to cite any
support for the claim.
Federal judges in New York and New Jersey have ordered the
government not to deport Khalil while his case plays out in multiple
courts.
The Trump administration has said it is taking at least $400 million
in federal funding away from research programs at Columbia and its
medical center to punish it for not adequately fighting what it
considers to be antisemitism on campus.
Some Jewish students and faculty complained about being harassed
during the demonstrations or ostracized because of their faith or
their support of Israel.
Immigration authorities have cracked down on other critics of Israel
on college campuses, arresting a Georgetown University scholar who
had spoken out on social media about the Israel-Gaza war, canceling
the student visas of some protesters and deporting a Brown
University professor who they said had attended the Lebanon funeral
of a leader of Hezbollah, another militant group that has fought
with Israel.
___
Brumback reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporter Larry
Neumeister in New York contributed.
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