Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be kicked out of the US as a national security risk, an immigration judge in Louisiana found Friday during a hearing over the legality of deporting the activist who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The government's contention that Khalil's presence in the US posed "potentially serious foreign policy consequences" was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation, Immigration Judge Jamee Comans said at the hearing in Jena. Comans said the government had "established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable," the AP reports.
Lawyers for Khalil said they plan to keep fighting. The judge gave them until April 23 to seek a waiver. Meanwhile, a federal judge in New Jersey temporarily barred Khalil's deportation. Addressing the judge at the end of the Louisiana hearing, Khalil pointed out that she said at a hearing earlier in the week that "there's nothing more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness," adding, "Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process." His lawyer, Marc Van Der Hout, also addressed fairness. "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.
Khalil, a legal US resident, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under President Trump's promised campaign against students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza. Within a day, he was flown across the country and taken to an immigration detention center in Jena, thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife, a US citizen who is due to give birth soon. Khalil's lawyers have challenged the legality of his detention, saying the Trump administration is trying to crack down on free speech protected by the US Constitution.
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