Mahmoud Khalil is seen at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York on April 29, 2024.
Ted Shaffrey/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Ted Shaffrey/AP
The Trump administration’s case against Mahmoud Khalil largely rests on a single letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to Khalil’s attorneys.
The two-page letter, which was submitted in an immigration court filing on Wednesday and published Thursday with redactions by Khalil’s legal team, alleges that Mahmoud Khalil participated in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities,” and that his continuing presence in the U.S. would have “potentially serious adverse foreign consequences, and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.”
“Two pages. That’s it,” said Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s lawyers. “This administration wants to silence Mahmoud.”
Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security released their evidence against Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and lawful permanent resident, after an immigration judge in Louisiana ordered them to do so at a hearing on Tuesday.
The Trump administration is trying to deport the 30-year-old who played a prominent role in campus protests last year. Judge Jamee Comans said she will rule on Friday whether Khalil can be deported, or whether he must be freed.
Khalil’s case has become a crucial test for how far the Trump administration can go to deport noncitizen protesters. Khalil insists he was expressing support for Palestinians in Gaza, while administration officials accuse him of providing support to Hamas terrorism.
Khalid’s legal case is proceeding on multiple tracks. While an immigration judge considers the evidence against him, Khalid’s lawyers are also challenging his March 8 detention in federal court in New Jersey.
After ICE agents arrested Khalil on March 8 and shipped him to Louisiana, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had revoked Khalil’s green card.
Rubio relied on a rarely-used statute from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that authorizes the Secretary of State to personally order the deportation of people whose presence in the U.S. he believes “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
But after the Cold War ended, lawmakers modified the law in 1990 to protect “beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States,” and raised the standard for deportation to cases in which the foreigner’s presence in the U.S. would “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”
Days after Khalil was arrested and detained, Homeland Security officials charged him with several more civil violations. They allege he withheld information on his 2024 green card application, including his work history with a United Nations relief agency, and his involvement with a pro-Palestinian activist group at Columbia University.
All of those are civil charges, not criminal. Khalil’s lawyers have denied them.
Free speech advocates argue the administration is violating the Constitution by targeting immigrants for their activism and their political beliefs. Khalil and several other students and scholars who have been detained have challenged their arrests on constitutional grounds.
