An immigration judge has ruled in favor of the Trump administration in allowing for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, an anti-Israel Columbia University activist who had been in the United States on a visa, which has been revoked.
Immigration judge Jamee Comans from Louisianna ruled that Khalil can be deported because of the evidence against him, The Hill reported. Khalil was arrested in March and has been placed in an immigration detention center since.
Last month, Trump said, “ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it."
Khalil was the lead negotiator of an pro-Palestinian Gaza encampment at Columbia and failed to disclose connections to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) when he applied for a visa, the DOJ has said.
The UNRWA was stripped of its funding from the US after it was reported that staffers at the organization were involved in the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel. Khalil was reportedly a political affairs officer for the UNRWA between June and November 2023.
The State Department under Secretary of State Marco Rubio has used a provision in law that allows for noncitizen to be deported if they are determined to be a threat to US foreign policy.
Rubio argued in a filing in the deportation case that if Khalil were to stay in the United States, it would damage “policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”
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