The Trump administration is moving to Deport Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident residing in the United States who recently graduated from Columbia University and has contributed to conducting protests from the high -profile campus against the Israeli war in Gaza.
Speaking with journalists in Ireland on Wednesday, the secretary of state Marco Rubio accused Mr. Khalil has participated in the protests he described as anti -Semitic and supporting the Hamas terrorist group. Foreigners who come to the United States and do these things, said, will have their visas or the revocated green cards and will explode.
“It is not about freedom of speech,” said Rubio. “These are people who do not have the right to be in the United States to begin with. Nobody is entitled to a visa for students. By the way, nobody has the right to a green card. “
The arrest of Mr. Khalil turned on the protests in New York and organized a struggle for freedom of speech. Here’s what to know about the administration’s attempt to expel him.
Who is Mahmoud Khalil?
Khalil, 30, achieved a master’s degree at the Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in December. He has the Palestinian legacy and is married to an eight -month -old American citizen.
Mr. Khalil’s lawyers claim to have been arrested by immigration officers on Saturday in his apartment in Manhattan even if he told agents that he had a green card. He was then sent to a detention center in Louisiana.
At Columbia last spring, Khalil took on an important role in the protests led by the students on the campus against the war efforts of Israel in Gaza. He described his position as a negotiator and spokesperson of the Apartheid Drivest of Columbia University, a pro-Palestinian group.
What is the legal basis for its arrest and possible deportation?
Khalil did not have to face any criminal accusation and the deportation procedures are a civil, non -criminal question. In the arrest of Mr. Khalil and at work to remove him from the United States, Rubio is based on a provision of the 1952 Immigration and National Act that gives him the power to expel foreigners.
The provision states that any “alien whose presence or activity in the United States The Secretary of State has a reasonable reason to be believed that it would potentially have serious consequences on foreign policy for the United States”.
The logic of the Administration for the reason why Rubio can invoke this provision to expel Mr. Khalil, according to people with knowledge of the matter, is that the United States have a foreign policy to fight anti -Semitism all over the world. The presence of Mr. Khalil in the United States said the people, would have undermined that goal because the protests they helped to drive were anti -Semitic and promoted a hostile environment for Jewish students.
The border tsar of President Trump, Thomas Homan, echoed that reasoning while talking to Albany’s journalists on Wednesday. He described Mr. Khalil as a “threat to national security”.
“When you distribute flyers by encouraging violence in a university campus, it is illegal,” said Homan. “Being in this country with a visa or a resident card is a privilege and you have to follow some rules.”
Tuesday during a news briefing, Karoline Leavitt, press secretary of the White House, accused Mr. Khalil of “taking sides with terrorists”. He said that “Pro-Hamas propaganda flyers” with the organization logo were distributed to the protests that Mr. Khalil guided to Columbia.
He refused to share the alleged flyers with journalists, saying that doing it would have corrupted the dignity of the White House’s briefing room and did not present any proof that Mr. Khalil had produced or distributed flyers.
Nor did the officials accused Mr. Khalil of having any contact with Hamas, of taking indications or having provided material support.
The specialists of the immigration law have struggled to find any previous use of the supply of immigration and the national law that the administration is invoking. Since the legitimate permanent residents are protected by the Constitution-discussion the rights of freedom of speech of the first amendment and the rights of the fifth amendment due to the process-case seems likely to apply an important test if this statute, at least as applied to this situation, be constitutional.
What happens later?
A federal judge in Manhattan ordered the government not to remove Mr. Khalil from the United States while his case is underway. But it is not yet clear whether that judge has jurisdiction over him now that he has been transferred to Louisiana.
The judge did not make any immediate decision on the detention of Mr. Khalil during an audition on Wednesday, but allowed two phone calls for Khalil’s lawyer, their first contact privileged by his arrest. A government lawyer said that Mr. Khalil, a permanent legal resident, was placed in removal procedures in Louisiana, where he is detained.
On Monday, Khalil’s lawyers also presented a motion asking the judge to force the federal government to transfer him to New York to bring him together with his wife, who should give birth to next month.
Its immigration status will be decided in a separate process, chaired by a judge of immigration that could determine whether to revoke the green card of Mr. Khalil. There is little precedent for the deportation of a permanent legal resident based on the law of 1952 which gives the Secretary of State the power to do so for reasons of foreign policy.
Could it happen to other visas or green card holders?
Trump said that Mr. Khalil’s case was “the first arrest of many to come”. Mrs. Leavitt echoed that warning and said that Columbia had the names of others who had “engaged in pro-Hamas activities” and that the school “was refusing to help” the National Security Department to identify them.
One of the lawyers of Mr. Khalil, Amy Greer, said that national security agents told her that they had a mandate to revoke her visa for students. When he informed them that Mr. Khalil did not have one, since he was permanent resident, he was told that the department had revoked his green card.
What did Trump say on the pro-Palestinian demonstrators?
Since 2023, Trump has repeatedly promised to revoke the visas of international students who participate in pro-Palestinian protests and criticize Israel’s war efforts.
“The Americans were disgusted to see the support open to terrorists among the legions of foreign citizens on university campuses,” Trump said to an event in Iowa on October 16, 2023. “They are teaching your children hate.”
He added: “Under the Trump administration, we will revive the student visas of radical, anti-American and anti-Semitic foreigners in our colleges and universities and we will send them home.”
During a speech in Las Vegas on October 28 of that year, Trump said that “we will end the visas of all those Hamas sympathizers, and make them leave our university campuses, out of our cities and let them out of our country”.
Jonah E. Bromwich AND Aishvary Kavi Contributed relationships.