Jena, La. (AP) – The graduate student of the University of Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil
Immigration judge Jamee E. Comans, Jena’s assertion at the end of a hearing that Khalil’s presence in the United States said “potentially serious consequences of foreign policy” was sufficient to meet the requirements for his expulsion.
COMANS said the government had “established clear and convincing evidence that it was removable”.
Khalil lawyers should appeal. And a federal judge of New Jersey temporarily prohibited the withdrawal of Khalil from the country.
Khalil, an American legal resident, was arrested by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the hall of his apartment belonging to a university, the first arrest under the promised repression of President Donald Trump against the students who joined the demonstrations of the campus against the war in Gaza.
In one day, he was transported by plane across the country and taken to an immigration detention center in Jena, thousands of kilometers from his lawyers and his wife, an American citizen who has to give birth soon.
Khalil lawyers have challenged the legality of his detention, saying that the Trump administration is trying to repress freedom of expression protected by the American Constitution.
The American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, cited a law rarely used to justify the expulsion of Khalil, which gives him the power to deport those who pose “the unfavorable consequences unfavorable potentially serious for the United States”.
At the hearing on Friday, Khalil’s lawyer Marc Van der Hout, told the judge that the government’s submissions at the Court proved that the attempt to deport his client “had nothing to do with foreign policy”.
Earlier this week, COMANS challenged the government to share proof that Khalil should be expelled from the country for his role in campus demonstrations against Israel and the war in Gaza. She said that if the evidence does not support her dismissal, she “would end the case on Friday”.
On Friday, lawyers of the Ministry of Justice said in documents deposited before the Newark Federal Court, New Jersey, that Comans would not have the power to immediately release Khalil.
They declared that an immigration judge could determine if Khalil was subject to expulsion, then carry out a release hearing under bail later if it is noted that it is not.
Khalil is not accused of having violated the laws during the demonstrations of Columbia. The government, however, said that the non-citizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country to express points of view that the administration considers as an anti-Semitic militant group and “pro-Hamas”, referring to the Palestinian militant group which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Khalil, a 30-year-old graduate student, was a negotiator and spokesperson for militant students from Columbia University who took over a campus lawn last spring to protest the Israel military campaign in Gaza.
The university brought the police to dismantle the camp after a small group of demonstrators seized an administrative building. Khalil is not accused of having participated in the occupation of the building and was not among those arrested as part of the demonstrations.
But the images of his face without mask during the demonstrations, as well as his desire to share his name with the journalists, made him an object of contempt among those who saw the demonstrators and their requests as anti -Semites. The White House accused Khalil of “turning back on terrorists”, but has not yet cited support for the complaint.
The federal judges of New York and New Jersey ordered the government not to expel Khalil while his business takes place in court.
The Trump administration said it was taking at least $ 400 million in federal funding for research programs in Columbia and its medical center to punish it for not having done enough to combat what it considers anti -Semitism on the campus.
Some Jewish students and teachers complained to be harassed during demonstrations or ostracized because of their faith or support for Israel.
Immigration authorities have suppressed other criticism from Israel on university campuses, arresting a scholarship holder from the University of Georgetown who had spoken on the social media of the War of Israel-Gaza, canceling the student visas of certain demonstrators and moving a brown university professor who, according to them, had attended the funeral of Lebanon with a leader of Hezbollah Played with Lebanon with Israel.
Brumback reported to Atlanta. The journalist of Associated Press Larry Neumeister in New York contributed.