When Mahmoud Khalil, who helped drive pre-Palestinian demonstrations, while a student at Columbia University, was held this month, Trump’s administration argued that he must be deported to help prevent anti-Semitism, citing a rarely used law.
Lawyers for Mr Khalil, a legal permanent resident in Louisiana, quickly responded that the administration reacted against their client for his constitutionally protected speech by criticizing Israel and promoting Palestinian rights.
Last week, the government added quietly new accusations in its case against Mr Khalil, saying that it failed to reveal a member of several organizations, including a United Nations organization that helps Palestinian refugees, when he applied for the US. He said he also failed to reveal his work he did for the British government after 2022.
Trump’s administration seems to partially use new allegations to bypass the issues of the first amendment raised by Mr Khalil’s case. On Sunday, in a testimony opposed to its release, lawyers of the Ministry of Justice claimed that new allegations have reduced the importance of concerns about Mr Khalil’s right to freedom of speech.
“Khalil’s first amending allegations are a red herring,” they wrote. Given the new allegations, they added, there was an “independent basis” for its expulsion.
“The new reasons for deportation are obviously weak and preliminary,” said one of Mr Khalil’s lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, Clear’s co-director, a law clinic at the University of New York City. “That the government came in to add to them to the 11th hour only emphasizes how its motivation from the beginning was to oppose Mr Khalil for his protected speech to support Palestinian rights and lives.”
Mr Khalil’s lawyers are expected to argue that the new charges are a pretext for continuous retaliation against their client’s speech and his continued detention away from home and his family. They are fighting for his release at a New Jersey federal court. Mr Khalil’s wife, an American citizen living in New York, is expected to give birth next month.
The new allegations, listed in a document from the Department of Internal Security, include that Mr Khalil did not disclose his work with the UN Organization or Apartheid Disest of the University of Columbia, a coalition of student groups that displaced pre-Palestinian demonstrations. Mr. Khalil obtained a master’s degree from Columbia in December.
The government also said Mr Khalil failed to report his continued employment at the Syrian office at the British Embassy in Beirut, Lebanese after 2022.
The efforts of Mr Khalil’s lawyers in New Jersey to ensure his release are separate from the proceedings of the Court of Appeal – currently being carried out in Louisiana – which could lead to his expulsion. But in order to release Mr Khalil on the basis of new allegations, the government should convince a judge of immigration that any failure to disclose the information was deliberate and would have made a difference in the chances of getting a legal residence.
Trump’s administration is also standing with its initial justification for Mr Khalil’s detention, citing a minimally used law that says the minister can launch expulsion procedures against non -policies whose presence in the United States can reasonably be considered a threat to the country’s agenda.
Foreign Minister Marco Rubio accused Mr Khalil of participating in anti -Semitic activities, referring to protests on the Columbia campus where, the secretary said, students expressed support for Hamas.
Mr Khalil’s lawyers denied that their client has promoted Hamas and has generally argued that their client’s speech was protected from the first amendment. They are expected to question the constitutionality of the law that Mr Rubio initially justifies Mr Khalil’s detention.
Jesse Furman, a federal judge in New York, who reviewed Mr Khalil’s case before transferring it to New Jersey last week, said the first and issue of the fifth amendment resulting from the case justified a careful review.
“The fundamental constitutional principle that all persons in the United States are entitled to the fair process of the law requires no less,” he wrote.
