Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil said on Thursday that they will seek testimony by Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, who argues that although Mr Khalil did not commit crimes, his presence in the United States allows anti -Semitism.
Mr. Khalil, a graduate of the University of Columbia, who led the pre-Palestinian demonstrations on campus last year, was held by the government for more than a month. He has a hearing in the Louisiana migration court on Friday, where his lawyers have recognized, it is unlikely that the judge will give their request to hear from Mr Rubio.
But they said that the lack of justification for Mr Khalil’s detention, in addition to Mr Rubio’s claim, made it even more important for the Secretary to be forced to answer questions in deposit.
“Mr Khalil has the right under the proper procedure to deal with the evidence against him and this is what we want to look at Foreign Minister Rubio,” said Marc Van Der Hout, one of his lawyers.
The Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Lawyers’ observations came to news that was informed the day after the Internal Security Department submitted evidence in his case to release Mr Khalil. The case raised important questions about freedom of speech and due process during President Trump’s second term.
Mr Khalil’s lawyers reported that the evidence submitted by the Department – including an unchanging note by Mr Rubio – did not provide any additional excuse for Trump’s argument for the deportation of Mr Khalil.
The note, first received from the Associated Press, did not blame Mr Khalil, a legal permanent resident who is a Palestinian and married to an American citizen, criminal behavior. Instead, it has been reported, the Administration reported a rarely used statute that allows the minister to begin the expulsion process against anyone who can reasonably consider a threat to the United States’ foreign policy, in this case a policy of combating anti -Semitism.
Mr Khalil was particularly visible during the campus protests in Columbia last year, representing a coalition of student organizations in negotiations with school.
In public statements, the Department of Internal Security said Mr Khalil was “aligned with Hamas”, while the White House accused him of “bypassing terrorists”. But even with the publication of Mr Rubio’s note, no public evidence has been offered to substantiate these allegations.
Internal security has also submitted evidence of other allegations against Mr Khalil, which relate to whether he has revealed his integration into various organizations, including a United Nations organization that helps Palestinian refugees when he applied to become a resident of the US.
A department’s spokesman refused to provide this, or any other, evidence, noting that “the docks of the Court of Appeal are not available to the public”.
Mr Van der Hout excluded these claims, calling them “false”.
“The Rubio letter is the only evidence that goes to the main charge in this case,” he said.
Mr Khalil was arrested last month in Manhattan and was quickly transferred to Louisiana, where he was held since then. He and his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, are waiting for a child this month.
The judge who oversees the migration case, Jamee E. Comans, signaled that he did not believe it was her role to decide the constitutionality of the statutes that Mr Rubio cited. Instead, at the hearing of Friday, it is expected to determine whether the evidence provided by the Government meets the requirements of the rarely used law he is referring to – so Mr Khalil can be deported.
Even if he allows the government to deport Mr Khalil, he will not immediately move away from the country.
While the migration case is moving on to Louisiana, efforts to combat the constitutionality of his detention are playing in front of a federal judge in New Jersey. This judge, Michael Farbiarz, ordered the government not to remove Mr Khalil until he ruled differently.
