Judge rules US can deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil
The pro-Palestinian activist was the first person arrested under Trump’s crackdown on students taking part in campus protests over Gaza
Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be deported as a national security risk, an immigration judge in Louisiana has ruled during a hearing over the legality of kicking the activist who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations out of the US.
Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans said on Friday at the conclusion of a hearing in Jena that the government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation.
Comans said the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable”.
Lawyers for Khalil are expected to appeal. And a federal judge in New Jersey has temporarily barred Khalil’s removal from the country.
Khalil, a legal US resident, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned flat, the first arrest under US President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
Within a day, he was flown across the country and taken to an immigration detention centre in Jena, thousands of kilometres from his lawyers and wife, a US citizen who is due to give birth soon.