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The reasons behind pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s potential deportation have been clarified by the Trump administration, in response to allegations that he was being targeted for exercising his freedom of speech.
The 30-year-old Khalil, who is a grad student and a lawful US resident, gained attention for participating in anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University last year before being taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement along with Homeland Security Investigations agents on campus on March 8.
Initially, the Trump administration stated that Khalil was being detained under a seldom-utilized law from 1952, which authorizes the Secretary of State to expel non-citizens if it is deemed that their presence in the US poses a threat to foreign relations.
But in a legal filing on Sunday, the Department of Justice claimed Khalil knowingly withheld information about his membership in certain organizations when he applied for permanent residency last year.
The filing accuses Khalil – a native of Syria and a citizen of Algeria – of failing to disclose his employment as a program manager by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut and his involvement in Columbia University’s Apartheid Divest club, according to NBC News.
The DOJ also says that Khalil purposefully left off the application that he was employed at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees as a political officer.
The agency had come under fire after the United Nations admitted that several staff members may have been involved in Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel – which prompted the United States to halt funding for the international group.
A spokesperson for the agency, though, has said Khalil was an unpaid intern in 2023, but was never on the staff. The spokesperson added that the group does not have in its job descriptions the post of political affairs officer.
Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, 30, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations agents on campus on March 8
Any omissions on the permanent citizen application, though, could be considered fraud and willful misrepresentation if an applicant ‘misrepresents material facts’ to ‘conceal group memberships’ that would make them ineligible for permanent residency status, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
‘It’s a black-letter law that misrepresentation in this context are not protected speech,’ the filing says.
‘Thus, Khalil’s First Amendment allegations are a red herring, and there is an independent basis to justify removal sufficient to foreclose Khalil’s constitutional claim here.’
Still, the government will have to prove to an immigration judge that Khalil purposely failed to disclose the information – and that if he had disclosed his involvement in the groups, he would not have been eligible for permanent residency.
Khalil’s defense is planning to file a response to the allegations by Tuesday afternoon, CNN reports.
‘These late-breaking, after-the-fact allegations, silly as they are, primarily show that the government must know the supposed “foreign policy” grounds for Mahmoud’s removal are absurd and unconstitutional,’ his lawyer Baher Azmy told NBC News.
He went on to say that the federal governments new claims ‘cannot change the obvious fact the government has admitted he is being punished in the most autocratic way for his constitutionally protected speech.’
Khalil’s supporters have argued that his arrest is a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech
He was highly involved in the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University last year
Following his arrest, Khalil was briefly held at an ICE facility in New Jersey but was promptly moved to an immigration detention center in Louisiana after the federal government argued that the detention center in New Jersey was unsuitable ‘because the facility was dealing with bedbug issues’ and a lack of space, according to CNN.
However a petition for his release is moving forward in the New Jersey courts, where his attorneys first filed the case, a New York judge ruled last week.
That judge also blocked his immediate deportation, so his legal challenge could be considered.
Yet the Trump administration’s filing on Sunday argued that the state of New Jersey lacks the jurisdiction to hear Khalil’s case.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people have come out to protest Khalil’s arrest last week, and several Democrats have raised alarms after he was arrested but not charged with a crime.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, though, has fired back at critics of Khalil’s arrest, saying that it is ‘not about free speech.’
Hundreds of people have come out to protest Khalil’s arrest last week
‘When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is, which is how this individual entered this country, on a visitor’s visa, you are here as a visitor. We can deny you that visa,’ the U.S. top diplomat argued.
If someone said they intended to come to the U.S. as a student ‘and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities’ and shut down universities, they would be denied the visa, Rubio said.
He added: ‘If you actually end up doing that once you’re in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it.’
Rubio also said if they end up on a green card with such activities, the U.S. will kick someone out.
‘This is not about free speech. This is about people who don’t have the right to be in the United States to begin with,’ the secretary of state said.
‘No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card,’ Rubio added.
He said the U.S. can deny one for ‘virtually any reason.’
That included ‘being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down, and being complicit in what are clearly crimes of vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions.’
