Mahmoud Khalil is seen in a pro-Palestinian camp on the campus of Columbia University in New York on April 29, 2024.
Ted Shaffrey / AP
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Ted Shaffrey / AP
The case of the Trump administration against Mahmoud Khalil is largely based on a single letter from the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to the lawyers of Khalil.
The two-page letter, which was submitted in an immigration court file on Wednesday and published Thursday with the Redations of the Khalil legal team, alleges that Mahmoud Khalil participated in “anti-Semitic protests and disruptive activities” and that his continuous presence in the United States would have “potentially serious foreign consequences and compromise foreign interest in the United States.”.
“Two pages. That’s it,” said Marc Van der Hout, one of Khalil’s lawyers. “This administration wants to silence Mahmoud.”
Lawyers from the Department of Homeland Security published their evidence against Khalil, a student graduated from Columbia University and a legal permanent resident, after An immigration judge in Louisiana ordered them to do so During a hearing on Tuesday.
The Trump administration is trying to expel the 30 -year -old who played a leading role in campus demonstrations last year. Judge Jamee Comans said she would govern on Friday if Khalil could be expelled, or if he were to be released.
Khalil’s case has become a crucial test for how far the Trump administration can go to expel non -citizen demonstrators. Khalil insists that he expressed support for the Palestinians in Gaza, while administration officials accuse him of supporting Hamas’ terrorism.
Khalid’s legal affair takes place on several tracks. While an immigration judge examines the evidence against him, the lawyers of Khalid also dispute his detention on March 8 before the New Jersey Federal Court.
After the ice agents arrested Khalil on March 8 and sent him to Louisiana, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had revoked Khalil’s green card.
Rubio relied on a rarely used status of the 1952 immigration and nationality law which authorizes the Secretary of State to personally order the expulsion of people whose presence in the United States, he considers “has potentially seriously unfavorable consequences of foreign policy for the United States”.
But after the end of the Cold War, legislators modified the law in 1990 to protect “beliefs, declarations or associations would be legal within the framework of the UNITED STATES“And increased the expulsion standard in cases in which the presence of abroad in the United States” would compromise a convincing interest in foreign policy in the United States “.
A few days after Khalil’s arrest and detention, internal security officials charged him with several other civil violations. They allege that he retained information on his request for a 2024 green card, including his professional history with a United Nations rescue agency, and his involvement in a pro-Palestinian activist group at Columbia University.
All of these are civil accusations, not criminals. Khalil’s lawyers denied them.
The defenders of freedom of expression argue that the administration violates the constitution by targeting immigrants for their activism and their political convictions. Khalil and several other students and academics who have been detained have challenged their arrests for constitutional reasons.
