The judge allows the Trump administration to expel the student of Columbia Mahmoud Khalil on pro-Palestine activism
A judge of the immigration court established this Donald TrumpAdministration S can expel a Columbia University Student activist for his involvement in the pro-Palestine events on the campus.
THE administrationThe statements that Mahmoud Khalil places “negative consequences on foreign policy” for the United States is “reasonable made”, according to the assistant judge Chief Immigration Jamee Comans.
Khalil’s arrest – which is currently detained in A Louisiana Easy at over 1,300 miles from New York, where the American city wife should imminent childbirth – has aroused international indignation and fears that the Trump administration is moving to crush political dissidents, starting from the events of the campus against the devastating campaign of Israel in Gaza and in the support of the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked hundreds of visas for students on campus activism, leading to several High profile arrests of international scholars Which are now awaiting remote deportation hearings in the southern United States.
The judge is giving Khalil’s lawyers until April 23 to discuss his removal in Syria or Algeria.
“I would like to mention what you said the last time there is nothing more important for this court than the process rights and fundamental correctness,” Khalil said at the end of the hearing of the Court for Immigration on Friday in Jena, Louisiana.
“Clearly what we witnessed today, none of these principles was present today or in all this process,” he added. “This is exactly why the Trump administration sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family. I only hope the urgency that you considered it appropriate for me is offered to hundreds of others that have been here without listening for months.”
A case challenging the constitutionality of the detention of the Columbia parking lot – a legitimate permanent resident with a green card – is also taking place in a federal court classroom New Jerseywhere his lawyers successfully moved jurisdiction to manage a legal challenge to his arrest.
Khalil has remained Immigration and customs application detention from 8 March. The administration accused him of “anti -Semitic activities” and supporting Hamaswhich categorically rejected. The officials admit that they have not committed any crime, but claim to be able to be removed on what Rubio has characterized as “potentially serious consequences of foreign policy”.
A Two pages memorandum Presented to the immigration court as proof of its removal admitted that its protest activities were “otherwise law”, but she claimed that letting it remain in the country would undermine the “American policy to combat anti -Semitism all over the world and in the United States, in addition to the efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States”.
Khalil and his legal team support his arrest and detention – and attempted the removal from the country, which is currently blocked by order of the court – they are violations of his Retale First amendment Right to freedom of speech and its fifth amendment right to the right process of law, among other statements.
His lawyers are challenging what they call “detention of targeted and attempted retaliation of a protestering student because of his constitutionally protected speech”.
“This is a dangerous slope,” his lawyer Marc Van der Hout told journalists. “People like Mahmoud have the constitutional right to speak in this country and the government should not use this really bogus cause to say that it is against the interests of foreign policy”.
Friday’s sentence is “a striking overcoming” of the Trump administration, according to Khalil Amy Greer’s lawyer.
“Every single person in this country has the right to speak against the issues that count for them – and I fear that this decision will encourage the Trump administration to hit other vulnerable people who are simply talking to Palestinian human rights and against a genocide in progress,” he said in a declaration, “we have fought every day since he was arrested. We will continue to do until he is in the family.
Khalil, who is Palestinian, grew up in a refugee camp in Syria. He entered the United States with a student visa in 2022 to pursue a master’s degree in the Public Administration, which he completed last year. Its early graduation date is May 2025.
It became a legitimate permanent resident in 2024.
Khalil “defined Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide and criticized Columbia University Since, in his opinion, funding and in other ways facilitating this violence “, his lawyers written in court last month.
The federal agents followed Khalil and his wife in the hall of an condominium and two other officers approached the United States from inside the building. They never produced a mandate, according to his lawyers.
Was transferred to a detention structure in New Jersey And then flew to Louisiana the next day.
“I am a political prisoner,” Khalil said in a public statement published on March 19th.
The Trump Administration “is targeting me as part of a wider strategy to suppress dissent” in which “Visa holders, vectors of green cards and citizens will all be targeted for their political beliefs,” he said.
