Mahmoud Khalil, an anti-Israel protestor and former student of Columbia University, can be deported for leading last year’s pro-Palestine protests, an immigration judge has ruled.
According to Fox News, Judge Jamee Comans ruled in Louisiana Friday that the U.S. government has met its burden of proof that Khalil, 30, can be removed.
Khalil reportedly told the court that there’s nothing more important that “due process” and “fundamental fairness.”
“I would like to quote what you said last time that there’s nothing that’s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness,” Khalil told the court. “Clearly, what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process. This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family. I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months.”
Khalil will have until April 23 to file relief applications.
During the hearing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attorneys pointed out how Khalil had misrepresented himself on his green card application and was not upfront about the organizations he was involved in.
Khalil also failed to disclose his employment with the Syrian office in the British Embassy in Beirut when he first applied for permanent U.S. residency, according to DHS lawyers.
Federal officials said that Khalil was “inadmissible at the time of his adjustment” because of “fraud or willful misrepresentation of material fact” in his status application and further accused him of failing to disclose his work with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and membership in Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
Khalil’s immigration attorney, Sabrine Mohamah, called the decision “unjust as it is alarming.”
“This is a blatant violation of the First Amendment and a dangerous precedent for anyone who believes in free speech and political expression,” Mohamah said.
“Mahmood is currently imprisoned in Louisiana, a state that detains over 7,000 people daily and serves as the second-largest hub for immigration detention in the U.S. Louisiana’s nine detention centers, eight of which are privately operated, include the only ICE facility in the country directly connected to an airport, thus streamlining mass deportations across the state.”
