On Tuesday, the Trump administration stepped up its efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil. He is a 30-year-old Palestinian activist, a legal U.S. resident, and has been openly critical of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The government’s most recent announcement comes just weeks after the administration faced a court-ordered deadline to submit evidence supporting the deportation. Immigration Judge Jamee Comans ordered the government to prove its allegations before a full hearing set for Friday.
Time and again in its legal filings, the administration falsely asserts that it has the unilateral authority to deport any noncitizen. It fears their presence would jeopardize U.S. foreign policy interests. That claim is based on a seldom-used provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act. This grants the secretary of state the power to initiate deportation proceedings if certain conditions are met. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made his worries clear in a letter. He cautioned that Khalil’s views and activism would erode U.S. leadership against rising antisemitism.
Even with the announcement, several questions remain unanswered. Yet it did not elaborate how antisemitism would be defined, raising concern that criticism of Israel or its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank could be wrongly classified as antisemitism. President Donald Trump has already linked pro-Palestinian speech and protests to support for terrorism.
Khalil’s legal team has vehemently opposed the government’s stance, claiming it infringes upon free speech and due process rights. They claim this is part of a larger effort by the administration to stifle political speech that is critical of Israel.
“Rubio cites no real foreign policy issues or evidence whatsoever,” – Marc Van Der Hout, Khalil’s attorney.
Van Der Hout stressed that the government’s own evidence shows Khalil took a lead role in drug negotiations. He helped to organize meetings at Columbia University between administration and a broad coalition of students that were occupying against Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza.
“Rather, what the government presented consists of Mahmoud’s role as a negotiator between Columbia University and hundreds of other diverse students, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, who spoke out against Israel’s slaughtering of innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the U.S. support and funding of that slaughtering,” – Marc Van Der Hout.
Judge Comans forced the government to back down from its overreach. He argued that there is “not a single shred of evidence” showing that Khalil would ever be a danger to the U.S. Our fiercely proud legal team aren’t letting anything slide defensively. They point to Khalil’s pending lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, which argues that his detention is violating civil rights, including the right to free expression.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently announced that it will begin using social media screenings to identify antisemitic behavior, as one part of this broader approach. Critics are quick to point out that this step will only further chill free expression.
This case exemplifies a dangerous trend of increasing government encroachment on citizens’ civil liberties. It especially hones in on the chilling effect on political expression in the midst of foreign policy debates. On March 8, Khalil was arrested in the lobby of his student apartment building in the Bronx, New York City. As of today, he’s never actually been charged with a crime.
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