Jonathan Turley Highlights Trump Admin’s Strongest Arguments In Bid To Deport Pro-Hamas Protester

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Wednesday that Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student taken into custody, was “in a precarious spot” due to his support of the radical Islamic terrorist group Hamas.

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Khalil on Monday after his green card was revoked over his involvement in pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University. Turley said that Khalil’s attorneys need to “ramp up” their case quickly.

“The question is what the standard is here because LPRs, or lawful permanent residents, do have a robust level of constitutional protections, not as much as a citizen,” Turley told “America’s Newsroom” co-hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino. “The Supreme Court over two decades ago said the government could detain LPRs in the case called Demore in 2003 and that is on the books and they have a lot of support for that.”

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“We’re not sure of the relationship of this material to this individual. Some of the material even said it came from the Hamas press office, now that’s a terrorist organization. So that’s the type of evidence we’re looking to see what the nexus is to this individual,” Turley continued. “But his involvement in unlawful conduct involving trespass, ultimately, what was property damage puts him in a precarious spot and the secretary of state is given this authority under 1227 to make this determination. The courts tend to defer to that, so they’re going to need to really ramp up fast to show evidence to the contrary.”