NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student the Trump administration is trying to expel from the U.S. because of his role in campus protests against Israel, are expected to appear Friday before a judge in New Jersey as they fight for his release from federal custody.
Khalil, 30, was arrested March 8 at his university-owned apartment building in New York, then flown south to Louisiana, where he remains locked in an immigration detention center.
The Trump administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to deport noncitizens whose presence in the country threatens U.S. foreign-policy interests. Khalil was born in Syria but is a legal U.S. resident married to an American citizen.
The court fight in Newark is a continuation of one that began in New York City, but which was transferred across the Hudson River after a judge determined a federal court in New Jersey was the proper jurisdiction for the case. Among the first issues for the new judge is whether to keep the case or transfer it again. The Trump administration wants it moved to Louisiana.
Khalil served as a negotiator for pro-Palestinian Columbia students as they bargained with university officials over an end to their campus tent encampment last spring. The university ultimately called in the police to dismantle the encampment and a faction of protesters seized an administration building.
Khalil was not among the people arrested in the Columbia protests and he has not been accused of any crime.
But the administration has said it wants to deport Khalil because of his prominent role in the protests, which they say amounted to antisemitic support for Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. People involved in the student-led protests deny their criticism of Israel or support of Palestinian territorial claims is antisemitic.
U.S. officials also have accused Khalil of failing to disclose some of his work history on his immigration paperwork, including work at a British embassy and an internship with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Other university students and faculty across the country have been arrested by immigration officials, had their visas revoked or been prevented from entering the U.S. because they attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians.
Among them are a Gambian student at Cornell University in upstate New York, an Indian scholar at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., a Lebanese doctor at Brown University’s medical school in Rhode Island, a Turkish student at Tufts University in Massachusetts and a Korean student at Columbia who has lived in the country since she was 7.
