‘Thousand miles away from family’: US court allows deportation of Palestinian Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil | World News

An immigration judge in United States ruled Friday that a Palestinian Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who participated in protests against Israel, can be deported.“Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be forced out of the country as a national security risk”, Immigration Judge Jamee E Comans in Louisiana said after lawyers argued the legality of deporting the activ who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Khalil, a legal US resident, was taken to an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana, thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife, a US citizen who is due to give birth soon. After Friday’s ruling, Khalil attorneys said they will appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals within weeks. “So nothing is going to happen quickly,” his attorney Marc Van Der Hout was quoted as saying news agency AP.
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Federal immigration agents detained Khalil last month, the first arrest under President Donald Trump’s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
What Khalil said during the hearing
The government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the US posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” satisfied requirements for deportation, Immigration Judge Comans said at a hearing in Jena.
He said the government had “established clear and convincing evidence that he is removable.”
Addressing the judge at the end of the immigration hearing, Khalil recalled her saying at a hearing earlier in the week that “there’s nothing more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness.”Story continues below this ad
“Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process,” he added.
“This is exactly why the Trump adminration has sent me to the court, 1,000 miles away from my family.”
Van Der Hout, also criticised the hearing’s fairness and said: “Today, we saw our worst fears play out: Mahmoud was subject to a charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair hearing, and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent,” Van Der Hout said in a statement.
Challenging legality of detention
Khalil’s lawyers have challenged the legality of his detention, saying the Trump adminration is trying to block free speech protected the First Amendment.Story continues below this ad
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited a rarely used statute to justify Khalil’s deportation, which gives him power to deport those who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
At Friday’s hearing, 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” and said the government is trying to deport him for protected speech.
Who is Mahmoud Khalil?
30-year-old Khalil was  born in Palestine and raised in Syria after his grandparents were forcibly removed from their ancestral home in Tiberias.
The international affairs student isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. He had served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activs at Columbia University who took over a campus lawn last spring to protest Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.Story continues below this ad
After a small group of protesters seized an adminration building, the university summoned police to dismantle the encampment
While Khalil is not accused of participating in the building occupation and wasn’t among those arrested, his images of his maskless face at protests and his willingness to share his name with reporters have drawn scorn from those who viewed the protesters and their demands as antisemitic.
The White House accused Khalil of “siding with terrors” but has yet to cite any support for the claim.
The government, however, has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country for expressing views that the adminration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.Story continues below this ad
The Trump adminration 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 adequately fighting what it considers to be antisemitism on campus.
— With inputs from AP