An immigration judge has ordered Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil to be deported to Syria or Algeria over allegations that he omitted information from a green card application.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States and a prominent student activist against Israel’s war in Gaza, has been at the center of the Trump administration’s campaign against campus dissent.
In March, he was stripped of his green card and arrested in front of his then-pregnant wife in their New York City apartment building and sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he was jailed for more than 100 days while his legal team fought for his release in several courts.
Last week, Louisiana immigration judge Jamee Comans denied Khalil's motion for a waiver that prevented his removal from the country over alleged misrepresentations in his application for a change in his legal status, allegations his attorneys say relied on spurious reporting from right-wing media outlets.
“It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech,” Khalil said in a statement.
“Their latest attempt, through a kangaroo immigration court, exposes their true colors once again,” he added. “When their first effort to deport me was set to fail, they resorted to fabricating baseless and ridiculous allegations in a bid to silence me for speaking out and standing firmly with Palestine, demanding an end to the ongoing genocide. Such fascist tactics will never deter me from continuing to advocate for my people’s liberation.”
Khalil’s attorneys have 30 days from Friday’s order to appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
In her ruling, Comans wrote that Khalil had “willfully misrepresented material fact(s) for the sole purpose of circumventing the immigration process and reducing the likelihood his applications could be denied.”
Khalil, who is Palestinian, grew up in a refugee camp in Syria and has Algerian citizenship.
He entered the United States on a student visa in 2022 to pursue a master’s degree in public administration, which he completed last year.
He missed the birth of his son as well as his graduation from Columbia while in ICE detention.
In June, a federal judge ordered his release after his lawyers argued his arrest and threat of removal were retaliatory violations of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech and his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law, among other claims.
But after that ruling, the Trump administration claimed there is a secondary basis for his arrest and removal — allegations that he lied in immigration paperwork — which Khalil’s attorneys argue are similarly retaliatory and violate his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment due process rights.
Those allegations, which were raised only after his arrest, are meritless, his lawyers wrote in court documents.
The Trump administration had accused Khalil of withholding information that he was a “political affairs officer” for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency of Palestine Refugees, but he was an unpaid intern at the agency for six months in 2023. No such position exists at the agency.
Homeland Security officials also accused Khalil of failing to disclose his “continuing employment” with the Syria office in the British Embassy in Beirut “beyond 2022.”
His lawyers argue that he ended his contract at the British Embassy in Beirut in December 2022 so that he could attend Columbia.
Officials also accused Khalil of failing to disclose that he is a “member” of Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Evidence submitted by the government includes news articles from April 2024, though his application was submitted weeks earlier.
In their initial attempts to remove him from the country, Trump administration officials had accused Khalil of “antisemitic activities” — allegations Khalil and his legal team have flatly denied.
Officials concede that Khalil did not commit any crime, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to justify Khalil’s arrest by claiming that Khalil’s presence in the country undermines foreign policy interests to prevent antisemitism.
In federal court filings on Wednesday, Khalil’s attorneys argued that Judge Comans had rushed to a decision without an evidentiary hearing and had instead chosen to believe the government’s allegations.
Unlike federal district courts, immigration courts and the judges who run them operate under the Department of Justice and at the direction of the office of the attorney general.
Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department has ordered sweeping policy changes throughout the nation’s immigration court systems to speed removal orders to keep up with the president’s demands for mass deportations.
Khalil’s lawyers argue that the federal court order blocking his removal remains in effect.
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