Louisiana immigration judge Jamee Comans ruled on Friday, April 11, that former Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported. Comans said the case is “facially reasonable" and that the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable,” the Associated Press reported.
Khalil is an outspoken pro-Palestinian activist who took a leadership role in the volatile campus protests. His arrest on March 8 sparked a heated debate where supporters of the Columbia graduate argue this was a matter of free speech. However, Mr. Khalil was apprehended because his speech and beliefs would harm “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from Harassment and violence in the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued.
Molly Biklen, interim legal director for New York Civil Liberties Union and part of Khalil’s legal team responded to the filing, saying, “This document underscores that the government has ripped Mahmoud Khalil from his home and nine-months pregnant wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, solely because it disagrees with his speech. Controversial speech is not illegal, and political speech that criticizes the Israeli government or U.S. foreign policy is constitutionally protected.”
Last summer, Khalil spoke to The Hill about protest efforts for the 2024-2025 school year. He said, “What we will see [is] the students will continue their activism, will continue doing what they’ve done in conventional and unconventional ways. So not only protests, not only encampments, kind of any – any available means necessary to push Columbia to divest from Israel.”
Although Khalil has not been charged of committing any specific crime, President Donald Trump said last month that “ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbus University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”
While Khalil holds a green card, that does not make him a US citizen. It comes with conditions, as Liberty Nation News Executive Editor Leesa K. Donner explained, “and it is these very provisions that the government alleges Mr. Khalil defied. Section 237(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, codified in 8 U.S. Code § 1227, reads, ‘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.’”
Noor Zafar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project said in a statement that “The fight to bring Mahmoud home is far from over.” Judge Comans gave Mr. Khalil until April 23 to file a response.
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