Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent participant and spokesperson in pro-Palestinian demonstrations against Israel’s military actions in Gaza, can be deported from the United States after an immigration judge determined there is “clear and convincing” evidence he could be removed as a foreign policy risk.
Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans ruled Friday that the government sufficiently demonstrated Khalil’s removal was justified due to potential serious foreign policy consequences for the country.
The ruling was delivered at a hearing in Jena, Louisiana, where Khalil, a 30-year-old green card holder who completed the requirements for a master’s degree at Columbia in December, has been detained since his arrest by federal immigration agents on March 8.
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He was detained in the lobby of his apartment, which is university-owned housing, and immediately transferred to a distant immigration detention facility, away from his attorneys and his pregnant wife, a U.S. citizen.
A Palestinian raised in a refugee camp, Khalil’s family had earlier been displaced from their ancestral home in Tiberias during historical conflicts, his lawyers noted in a court filing.
Facing pressure to justify its actions in the case, the government submitted a memorandum from Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, justifying Khalil’s removal by citing a provision from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. He claimed allowing Khalil to stay in the U.S. would foster a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” and undermine U.S. foreign policy objectives.
“The foreign policy of the United States champions core American interests and American citizens and condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” he wrote.
Judge Comans stated explicitly in the ruling that the government’s evidence against Khalil met the high legal standard required for deportation on national security grounds.
The government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable,” the judge was quoted as saying, according to The Associated Press.
Khalil’s legal team contends that the Trump administration is suppressing constitutionally protected speech and says its evidence is nothing more than a letter from Rubio. The American Civil Liberties Union argues that Rubio’s letter makes clear that Khalil isn’t accused of committing a crime and is “targeted solely based on his speech.”
The government maintains that Khalil’s participation in protests supported views they considered antisemitic and supportive of Hamas, a terrorist Palestinian group responsible for an attack on Israel in October 2023 that sparked Israel’s military operations in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
At Friday’s hearing, Khalil’s attorney, Marc Van Der Hout, alleged that the government’s own submissions revealed the motive behind Khalil’s deportation was not related to genuine foreign policy concerns but aimed instead at silencing protected political speech. He accused the government of orchestrating a “charade” of due process.
“Today, we saw our worst fears play out: Mahmoud was subject to a charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair hearing, and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent,” Van Der Hout said in a statement. “This is not over, and our fight continues.”
Khalil is likely to appeal the ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Federal courts in New York and New Jersey had previously issued orders barring the government from deporting Khalil until all legal avenues are exhausted. Khalil himself addressed the judge at the conclusion of the immigration hearing, criticizing the proceedings as fundamentally unfair and questioning the court’s commitment to due process.
In March, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security accused Khalil of leading “activities aligned to Hamas,” which the U.S. government formally recognizes as a foreign terrorist organization.
The Trump administration has also threatened to withdraw about $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University and its medical center, citing inadequate responses to antisemitism allegedly linked to recent demonstrations. The action followed complaints from Jewish students and faculty about harassment and exclusion related to their religion or support for Israel.
Last year, activists at academic institutions throughout the country set up protest encampments and organized demonstrations in opposition to Israel’s war against Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007.
The encampments at Columbia University resulted in activists taking over a building on campus. Jewish students also reported that they experienced antisemitic harassment from the protesters and that they did not feel safe on campus.
Khalil told reporters at the time that activists planned to continue protesting despite arresting more than 2,000 activists among the encampments set up on college campuses, as The Hill reported last August.
“What we will see [is] the students will continue their activism, will continue doing what they’ve done in conventional and unconventional ways,” Khalil said, acting as a student negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest. “So not only protests, not only encampments, kind of any — any available means necessary to push Columbia to divest from Israel.”
“And we’ve been working all this summer on our plans, on what’s next to pressure Columbia to listen to the students and to decide to be on the right side of history,” he added.
Canary Mission, a group that worked to expose antisemitism, shared a video to its social media page on March 6 that showed Khalil among the activists who took over a library at Barnard College, a Columbia affiliate.
Activists at the protest handed out pamphlets from the “Hamas Media Office” that reportedly justified the terror group’s invasion on Oct. 7, 2023, which resulted in the massacres of over 1,200 people.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has claimed Khalil had personally handed out Hamas materials.
