What to know about activist Mahmoud Khalil and his attorneys' plan to appeal his deportation ruling
JENA: An immigration judge has ruled that a Palestinian Columbia University graduate student who participated in protests against Israel can be deported.
Mahmoud Khalil's attorneys said they will appeal Friday's ruling.
Federal immigration agents detained Khalil last month, the first arrest under President Donald Trump's crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
Khalil, a legal U.S. resident, was taken to an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana, thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife, a U.S. citizen who is due to give birth soon.
Here's a look at what has happened so far in Khalil's legal battle and what happens next:
The arrest
Khalil, a 30-year-old international affairs graduate student, had served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists at Columbia University who took over a campus lawn last spring to protest Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The university brought police in to dismantle the encampment after a small group of protesters seized an administration building. Khalil is not accused of participating in the building occupation and wasn’t among the people arrested in connection with the demonstrations.
But images of his maskless face at protests, along with his willingness to share his name with reporters, have made him an object of scorn among those who saw the protesters and their demands as antisemitic. The White House accused Khalil of “siding with terrorists” but has yet to cite any support for the claim.
He was detained March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment.
The legal fight
Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The government has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country for expressing views that the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Khalil’s lawyers have challenged the legality of his detention, saying the Trump administration is trying to deport him for an activity that is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited a rarely used statute to justify Khalil’s deportation, which gives him power to deport those who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
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