A Louisiana immigration judge said Friday that Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil – a legal permanent resident – can be deported after the United States government argued his presence posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences.”
The decision by Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans comes after the federal government submitted evidence to the court on Wednesday, including a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleging Khalil is deportable because of his “beliefs, statements or associations” that would compromise US foreign policy interests.
Khalil’s attorneys said the judge’s decision was solely based on Rubio’s memo – which contained no allegations of criminal activity – and was a violation of the graduate’s constitutional right to free speech that sets a harmful precedent.
“Despite the government’s failure to prove that Mahmoud broke any law, the court has decided that lawful permanent residents can have their status revoked for pro-Palestine advocacy,” Khalil’s legal team said at a press conference following the hearing. “This is a blatant violation of the First Amendment and a dangerous precedent for anyone who believes in free speech and political expression.”
A “removability finding” in immigration court means the judge has determined the individual is subject to removal from the United States due to a violation of immigration law or lack of legal immigration status. Khalil’s attorneys are expected to appeal the ruling.
Khalil was arrested last month by federal agents outside of his apartment on the campus of Columbia University following a deportation order from the Trump administration. Khalil, who is married to a US citizen, is a prominent Palestinian activist and played a central role in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza on the Ivy League campus last year.
Khalil’s attorneys have challenged the accusations against him in federal and immigration court, saying he is being targeted over his pro-Palestine activism.
At the end of Friday’s hearing, Khalil told the court he hasn’t been granted “due process rights and fundamental fairness,” according to a news release from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing him in the case.
“Neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process,” Khalil said. “This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family.”
Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, said her husband is being imprisoned for his pro-Palestine advocacy.
“My husband is a political prisoner who is being deprived of his rights because he believes Palestinians deserve equal dignity and freedom,” she said in a statement that was read during Friday’s briefing. “There is nothing the government can say about my husband that can silence this truth.”
Khalil is among the first of a string of students or faculty members at college campuses across the country – living in the US as permanent residents or through work or student visas – who have been detained by federal agents as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown. More than 500 students, faculty and researchers have had their visas revoked this year.
Khalil’s lawyers will continue to challenge deportation
Khalil’s legal team on Friday called into question the judge basing her decision on Rubio’s memo, which they said “makes extremely broad claims.”
The attorneys had made several requests with the immigration court – including filing a motion to see evidence supporting Rubio’s finding, a continuance request to continue arguing against the deportation order and a motion to file a waiver to contest his removal. All three motions were denied, his attorneys said.
“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,” Marc van der Hout, an immigration attorney for Khalil, said in a statement Friday.
Khalil’s lawyers will continue to challenge his deportation. Comens gave them until April 23 to submit new motions.
The team expects several more immigration hearings will be held before a final decision is made, after which they can make an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
As Khalil’s immigration attorneys plan their next steps, a separate case in federal court in New Jersey will continue to play out. Khalil’s attorneys have filed multiple petitions challenging the legality of his arrest and detention.
Federal district court Judge Michael Farbiarz, who is overseeing Khalil’s case in New Jersey, told attorneys in a phone conference Friday that he is still deciding whether he has the jurisdiction over the claims filed by Khalil’s legal team – including a habeas corpus motion, a motion to bring him back to the New York area, and a motion to release him on bail.
Khalil’s team will continue to seek bail and a preliminary injunction that would release him from custody while his immigration case proceeds, according to the news release from the ACLU.
“What happened in immigration court today only confirms the need for the federal court to really intervene and make a decision in this case, because the immigration court made clear today that it won’t, and it believes it can’t,” ACLU lawyer Amy Belsher, one of Khalil’s attorneys, said Friday.
Friday’s ruling could have a chilling effect on free speech at colleges and universities in the US, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, constitutional law professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told CNN Friday.
“It is chilling to all speech rights when the federal government’s memo sets out no criminal charges against Mahmoud but seems to say one person can affect American foreign policy through student protests,” she said.
Here’s how we got here
As a graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil served as a prominent negotiator for student protesters in talks with the Ivy League school’s administration over last spring’s contentious campus encampment to protest Israel’s war in Gaza.
Khalil’s case has sparked a firestorm of controversy since the night in March when he was arrested outside his university residence where he was living with his wife, a US citizen, who is nine months pregnant. He was transferred to a Louisiana detention center, where his immigration proceedings have taken place.
The administration ordered Khalil’s deportation “based on information provided by the DHS/ICE/HSI regarding the participation and roles of (redacted) and Khalil in antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States,” Rubio stated in the memo submitted Wednesday.
The actions and continued presence of Khalil in the US “undermine 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,” the memo continues.
Khalil’s attorneys previously said they would contest the evidence at the hearing and ask for an opportunity to depose Rubio.
Van Der Hout said the government had submitted evidence showing that Khalil was involved in protest negotiations at Columbia, but has not submitted evidence supporting the foreign policy allegation.
“The Rubio letter is the only piece of evidence going to the main charge in this case,” Van Der Hout said Thursday. “There is zero else.”
Van Der Hout also challenged the government’s description of antisemitism.
“What is the antisemitism? It is criticizing Israel and the United States for the slaughtering that is going on in Gaza, in Palestine. That’s what this case is about,” Van Der Hout said.
While ICE maintains that its detention of individuals is “non-punitive,” some immigration attorneys say that the agency is strategically isolating disfavored immigrants from their attorneys, families and support systems.
In a statement following Friday’s hearing, Abdalla said she will continue to advocate for her husband’s return home, though he may miss the birth of their first child in less than a month.
“Every day that he remains detained is another day that he suffers irreparable harm,” attorney Johnny Sinodis said Friday.
Sinodis questioned the precedent Friday’s decision sets for others like Khalil.
Like Khalil, Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk and Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri are facing deportation as the Trump administration takes aim at pro-Palestinian demonstrators and activists on college campuses.
“We must not give in to this chilling effect,” Khalil’s lawyers said in a statement Friday. “For Mahmoud, for Rumeysa, for Badr Khan Suri and for hundreds of others.”
Rare immigration law provision
The Trump administration, which accused Khalil of being a Hamas supporter, said it’s acting on a section of US immigration law that provides broad authority to revoke a person’s immigration status if the Secretary of State deems their “activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” to the country.
“For cases in which the basis for this determination is the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful, the Secretary of State must personally determine that the alien’s presence or activities would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest,” the newly released memo from Rubio reads.
That provision that the Trump administration is trying to use against Khalil – and other activists – is incredibly vague, New York University law professor Adam Cox told CNN.
Cox recently joined a group of 150 immigration lawyers and legal scholars in filing an amicus brief in Khalil’s federal case.
In the years since that provision was created in 1990, the provision was used in just 15 of 11.7 million removal cases, the brief notes. Of those 15, only five involved detention throughout the case and just four ultimately resulted in deportation, the experts noted.
While the authors did not have insight into the details of each case, they said they were unaware of the provision ever before being used against a lawful permanent resident “where the underlying conduct was itself political speech.”
“It may well be that Mr. Khalil’s case is unprecedented in the history of this provision and in the history of the United States. At a minimum, the government’s assertion of authority here is extraordinary—indeed, vanishingly rare,” the brief notes.
With that provision being used against other students swept up in Trump’s immigration crackdown, Cox says the decision made in Khalil’s case Friday could be important for cases to come.
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