LOUISIANA (TNND) — An immigration judge in Louisiana ordered pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil to be deported to Algeria or Syria, alleging that he omitted information on his U.S. green card application, according to court documents.
Khalil, a former Columbia University student, was detained in March in front of his pregnant wife and held in an immigration detention center for three months after participating in campus protests against the war in Gaza. He was freed after Judge Michael E. Farbiarz of the Federal District Court in Newark ordered the Trump administration to release him on bail.
A week after his arrest, the administration accused Khalil of paperwork errors in his citizenship application. However, Judge Farbiarz ruled that these allegations did not justify Khalil’s continued detention.
Khalil’s lawyers submitted a letter to the federal court in New Jersey stating they will appeal the decision.
ACLU, one of his representatives in the case, called the ruling a “baseless, pretextual misrepresentation” that the government added after his detention.
As the letter notes, the immigration judge rushed to a decision without providing a hearing on the evidence as due process requires, engaging in multiple procedural irregularities, and choosing to believe the false charges made after the fact by the government,” the statement continues.
Judge Jamee Comans wrote in her order that she found Khalil had “willfully misrepresented material fact(s) for the sole purpose of circumventing the immigration process and reducing the likelihood his application would be denied.”
“This Court cannot and will not condone such an action by granting a discretionary waiver. To do so, would encourage future applicants to take the gamble of materially misrepresenting facts and then seeking a waiver if it is somehow discovered by the U.S. government,” she added.
Khalil responded by saying, “It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech. Their latest attempt, through a kangaroo immigration court, exposes their true colors once again.”
At the time of Khalil’s arrest, the White House insisted the Immigration and Nationality Act gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio the power to revoke green cards of anyone adversarial to U.S. foreign policy and national security.