A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the green-card-holding Palestinian Mahmoud Khalil, who was taken from his home by ICE agents on Saturday and flown to a detention center in Louisiana, will remain in detention there as his case is adjudicated. Federal Judge Jesse Furman temporarily halted the deportation process against Khalil on Monday pending today’s hearing, where he also granted a request from Khalil’s lawyers to have privileged communications with him, which they have so far been denied. He will be allowed one phone call a day with his lawyers on Wednesday and Thursday.
Khalil, who graduated with a master’s degree from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in December, organized protests on campus last spring condemning Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which most human rights organizations have deemed a genocide. He is married to an American citizen, who is eight months pregnant. “My husband was kidnapped from our home and it’s shameful that the United States government continues to hold him because he stood for the rights and the lives of his people,” she said today at a demonstration outside the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan. “So many who know and love Mahmoud have come together refusing to stay silent. Their support is a testament to his character and to the deep injustice that is being done to him.”
Khalil’s lawyers argued in court that his detention and transportation to a facility in Louisiana amounts to retaliation for constitutionally “protected speech and advocacy.” Rescission of a green card is usually done through a process that does not involve arresting the individual. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ policy manual, USCIS must issue Notice of Intent to Rescind (NOIR) to the lawful permanent resident in question, who is then afforded the opportunity to rebut the government’s allegations against them through a sworn letter or a hearing in front of an immigration judge.
The Trump administration has instead opted for an obscure Cold-War era statute – the Immigration and Nationality Act – that affords the Secretary of State unilateral power to deport any alien (i.e. noncitizen, even a green card holder) who he has “reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who wrote in a post on X shortly after Khalil’s arrest calling him a “Hamas supporter,” personally signed off on the to deport Khalil, according to sources who spoke to Zeteo. The former Republican senator continued that rhetoric when speaking to the press on Wednesday: “if you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa ‘and, by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student, and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish-student, antisemitic, activities, I intend to shut down your universities’ – if you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa.”
Government lawyers presented no evidence in Wednesday’s hearing that Khalil has supported a terrorist organization, nor have any criminal charges against him been filed.
