Ahead Of Hearing, Feds Say Mahmoud Khalil Can Be Deported Over Beliefs

NEW YORK CITY — In response to a demand from an immigration judge to turn over evidence for its attempted deportation of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, the Trump administration submitted a memo claiming the government has the authority to expel noncitizens who threaten to damage U.S. foreign policy interests.

The memo obtained by the Associated Press was submitted a day before Khalil was expected to appear in court, where a judge would decide whether the government could continue to detain him during immigration proceedings.

Khalil is a legal permanent U.S. resident and graduate student who served as spokesperson for campus activists last year during large demonstrations against Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza.

In the memo, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not accuse Khalil of criminal conduct. Instead, he wrote that Khalil could be deported over his beliefs and that letting him stay in the country would undermine “U.S. 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.”

“Condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective," Rubio wrote in the undated memo.

Khalil, a green card holder married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested on March 8 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as part of a Trump administration crackdown on pro-Palestinian protestors on college campuses.

He was first brought to a detention center in New Jersey before being transferred to one in Louisiana, where he currently remains.

Khalil's arrest happened one day after the Trump administration pulled $400 million in federal grants from Columbia and vowed to arrest and deport student activists.

Khalil's attorneys responded to Rubio's memo on Thursday and accused the Trump administration of "finally admitting that they have no case whatsoever against him."

"Instead, the government is clearly going after Mahmoud and persecuting him for exercising his First Amendment rights," attorney Marc Van Der Hout said in a statement.

On Tuesday, an immigration judge in Louisiana said she would terminate the case against Khalil if the government did not provide evidence this week justifying their attempted deportation.

Judge Jamee Comans gave the government 24 hours to provide evidence showing that Khalil should be expelled from the country for his role in campus protests. If the evidence did not support his removal, she said, “then I am going to terminate the case on Friday.”

Khalil has adamantly rejected allegations of antisemitism, accusing the Trump administration in a letter sent from jail last month of “targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent.”

“Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances,” he added, “I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.