On Friday, an immigration judge ruled that the Trump administration can expel the student graduate from Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, only one month after his arrest caused national indignation and marked the beginning of the federal government’s repression against foreign students.
Khalil has until April 23 to deposit detention.
In his decision, the judge declared that “the court will maintain accusation of moving”.
After the judge ruled, Khalil addressed the court, saying: “Nothing more important than the regular procedure and fundamental equity. None of these principles was present today. This is exactly why the Trump administrator sent me before this court to 1,000 miles from my family.”
“I hope your emergency is for the thousands of people here in this establishment,” he added.
Khalil’s legal team criticized the decision and said that she “would continue to work tirelessly until Mahmoud is free”.
“Today, we have seen our worst fear playing: Mahmoud was subject to a regular procedural charame, a blatant violation of his right to a fair hearing and an armament of the Immigration Act to abolish dissent,” said his lawyer, Marc Van der Hout, in a press release. “It’s not over, and our fight continues.”
The Ministry of Internal Security and the White House did not immediately make comments.
A spokesperson for Columbia University refused to comment.
Khalil, who helped direct student demonstrations against the war in Gaza at Ivy League school last year, was detained on March 8 by the federal authorities of his apartments belonging to a university in New York. He has since been detained in a Louisiana immigration detention center.
The Trump administration publicly argued that she had the power to expel Khalil – a 30 -year -old green cards holder – because he “carried out activities aligned on Hamas, an designated terrorist organization”.
The administration has also repeatedly cited a rarely invoked provision of a 1952 law – the Immigration and Nationality Act – which allows the Secretary of State to deport the non -citizens if their presence in the country threatens the American foreign policy.
Government lawyers also allegedly alleged that Khalil had retained information on his affiliation with certain organizations and had not disclosed in his request for permanent residence that he was previously Employed at the British Embassy office in Beirut.
A federal judge pressed the administration to submit evidence supporting its complaints and justification of Khalil’s expulsion on Wednesday.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, replied Wednesday evening with a brief memo obtained by NBC News which quotes Khalil’s beliefs by justifying his expulsion.
Rubio said that even if “past, current or expected beliefs from Khalil, or associations, which are otherwise legal”, the provision allows Rubio to “determine personally” if Khalil should be authorized to stay in the country.
Rubio – Who is a child of Cuban immigrants – said last month that the State Department had revoked more than 300 student visas and would continue to do so.
According to an analysis of NBC News on Wednesday, officials revoked foreign students’ visas – many of which are Arab – in at least 29 states.
A video of the arrest in March of a student from TUFTS University, Rumeysa Öztürk, showed several agents of the Origin Internal Security Department, grabbing her wrists and moving it in a SUV while she was crying in confusion. Her lawyers argue that she was targeted for writing an opinion article in her school newspaper which criticized Toft’s response to war in Gaza.
An international student at the University of Florida was expelled at the end of last month after his arrest and accused of traffic violations, said his family and local officials.
DHS announced on Wednesday a new working group to monitor the activity of the social media of immigrants, including foreign students, for anti -Semitism. Three sources familiar with the operation told NBC News that managers are planning around 1.5 million international students for potential reasons to revoke their visas.
Khalil’s arrest caused a handful of demonstrations in Columbia, the epicenter of demonstrations last year, and around New York, including Trump Tower.
The Columbia students who spoke with NBC News since Khalil’s arrest said that the disposition of disposition had become “too dangerous” at university, formerly known as a place for a difficult authority.
Radical measures against international students are in several ways including the Trump administration used the powers of the federal government to have a leverage on university establishments.
The administration has also revoked hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding in several universities in recent weeks – notably Columbia, Harvard and Princeton – invoking the dissatisfaction of how they managed last year’s demonstrations against the war in Gaza.
