A United States immigration judge has ruled that the deportation case against Mahmoud Khalil can proceed, a month after the Columbia University graduate student was detained over his involvement in pro-Palestine protests.
Judge Jamee Comans made the determination on Friday at the end of a nearly two-hour hearing in the US state of Louisiana, saying the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable”.
Khalil – a US permanent resident – can appeal the decision.
“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,” one of his lawyers, Marc Van Der Hout, said in a statement after the hearing.
“This is not over, and our fight continues,” he added.
Khalil’s case has drawn widespread scrutiny as rights advocates accuse President Donald Trump’s administration of cracking down on free speech and pro-Palestine activism under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism.
The administration is trying to deport Khalil under a rarely used provision of an immigration law that gives the secretary of state the power to remove any non-citizen whose presence in the US is deemed to have “adverse foreign policy consequences”.
The government has not charged Khalil with a crime.
In a two-page letter submitted to the court and Khalil’s lawyers, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that the 30-year-old should be removed for his role in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States”.
Rubio’s letter did not accuse Khalil of breaking any laws, but he said that his department can revoke an immigrant’s legal status even where their beliefs, associations or statements are “otherwise lawful”.
Khalil’s supporters say he engaged in peaceful protests against Columbia University’s ties to the Israeli military as part of the wave of campus demonstrations that swept the country last year amid Israel’s Gaza war.
Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and another one of Khalil’s lawyers, told reporters on Thursday that Rubio’s letter “is a sort of tacky, Soviet-style diktat that’s equal parts empty and chilling”.
Reporting from outside the court in Jena, Louisiana on Friday, Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi said Khalil addressed the court during the hearing.
“He said nothing is more important than due process and fundamental fairness [and] neither of these principles were present” in his case, Rattansi reported.
Khalil has been held by the government since March 8, when he was arrested late at night by immigration enforcement agents in front of his pregnant wife, who is a US citizen.
He was then transferred to two different facilities without his family or lawyers being notified.
In a statement read out during a news conference outside the court in Louisiana on Friday afternoon, Khalil’s support team said the judge’s ruling was “as unjust as it is alarming”.
“Despite the government’s failure to prove that Mahmoud broke any law, the court has decided that lawful permanent residents can have their status revoked for pro-Palestine advocacy,” the team said.
“This is a blatant violation of the First Amendment [of the US Constitution] and a dangerous precedent for anyone who believes in free speech and political expression.”
In another statement read out by activists, Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, said the court’s decision was “a devastating blow”.
“No person should be deemed removable from their home for speaking out against the killing of Palestinian families, doctors and journalists,” said Abdalla, referring to Israel’s Gaza war.
Comans, the Louisiana immigration judge, gave Khalil’s legal team until April 23 to seek a waiver. But the judge’s decision is not the final say over whether Khalil will be deported.
In a separate case in New Jersey federal court, US District Judge Michael Farbiarz has blocked deportation while he considers Khalil’s claim that his arrest was made in violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment protections for freedom of speech.
Over the past several weeks, US immigration authorities have also cracked down on several international students who have taken part in pro-Palestinian protests or spoken out in defence of Palestinians in Gaza.
