Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be deported as a national security risk, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled Friday.
The Trump administration’s effort to deport Khalil, who was among the leaders of an anti-Israel activist coalition at Columbia that praised the Hamas terror group and its October 7 attack, sparked accusations from civil liberties groups and pro-Palestinian movements of restricting free speech.
Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans said at the conclusion of a hearing in Jena, Louisiana that the government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences� was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation.
Comans said the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable.�
Lawyers for Khalil are expected to appeal. And a federal judge in New Jersey has temporarily barred Khalil’s removal from the country.
Khalil, a legal US resident, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under US President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined campus protests surrounding the war in Gaza. The protests often saw expressions of support for Hamas and other terror groups.
Within a day, he was flown across the country and taken to an immigration detention center in Jena, thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife, a US citizen who is due to give birth soon.
Khalil’s lawyers, including representation from the American Civil Liberties Union, have challenged the legality of his detention, saying the Trump administration is trying to crack down on free speech protected by the US Constitution.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, has cited the Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in 1952, which gave the executive branch power to deport any noncitizen who poses “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The law also specifically allows for the deportation of a non-citizen who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.”
At Friday’s hearing, Khalil’s attorney Marc 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.â€�
Earlier this week, Comans challenged the government to share proof that Khalil should be expelled from the country for his role in campus protests against Israel and the war in Gaza. She said if evidence does not support his removal, she would “terminate the case on Friday.�
On Friday, Justice Department attorneys said in papers filed in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, that Comans would not have the authority to immediately free Khalil.
They said an immigration judge could determine if Khalil is subject to deportation and then conduct a bail hearing afterward if it is found that he is not.
Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The government, however, has said that 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.
Khalil, a 30-year-old international affairs graduate student, had served as a negotiator and spokesperson for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student coalition that spearheaded anti-Israel protests at the school.
CUAD has praised “violent resistance” by Palestinians, including, explicitly, the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages. The group also hosted a number of pro-Hamas figures to campus, including Khaled Barakat, who was later listed by the Biden administration as a specially designated foreign terrorist.
In addition, Khalil served as a negotiator and spokesperson for the anti-Israel encampment at Columbia last year, and for students who broke into and occupied a university building, unfurling a banner calling for “intifada.” He is not personally accused of participating in the building occupation, however, and wasn’t among the people arrested in connection with the demonstrations.
Federal judges in New York and New Jersey have previously ordered the government not to deport Khalil while his case plays out in court.
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 doing enough to fight antisemitism on campus.
Immigration authorities have also cracked down on other anti-Israel activists on college campuses, arresting a Georgetown University scholar who posted on social media about the war, canceling the student visas of some protesters and deporting a Brown University professor who they said had openly admitted to attending the Lebanon funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.