Mahmoud Khalil will fight 'to the end' after judge OKs deportation case, says lawyer
Khalil’s lawyer says he’s fighting for everyone jailed for ‘engaging in perfectly lawful speech’
It's been nearly 40 days since activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested without charge in front of his pregnant wife and sent to an immigration detention facility, but his lawyer says he remains "very strong."
The Columbia University graduate student was the first of several pro-Palestinian campus activists detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Donald Trump's administration.
A U.S. immigration judge on Friday gave the administration the green light to proceed with its deportation case against Khalil. But the activist's lawyer, Esha Bhandari, says the fight is far from over.
"He's determined to fight this case through to the end and to vindicate the principle that he shouldn't be in a detention centre for his lawful and constitutionally protected speech and his advocacy," Bhandari of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
U.S. cites 1952 law to deport pro-Palestinian activists
Born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, Khalil came to the U.S. on a student visa in 2022, and became a U.S. permanent resident last year. His wife, Noor Abdalla, is a U.S. citizen.
He completed a master's degree in public administration in December 2024 and was set to graduate in May. But those plans were disrupted when ICE officers came to his home at his university-owned apartment in New York City on March 8 and arrested him.
He was first held in New Jersey, then sent to a privately-owned immigration detention centre in Louisiana, where he has remained ever since.
He has not been charged with any crimes. Rather, his detention is based on his prominent role in the Columbia student protests against Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month that Khalil should be removed from the U.S. because his presence in the United States has "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences," citing a 1952 law called the Immigration and Nationality Act.
In a two-page letter submitted to the court and Khalil's lawyers, which they shared with reporters, Rubio wrote that Khalil should be removed for his role in "antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States."
Bhandari says the government has not defined what type of speech falls under the scope of this law.
"That is a very troubling, chilling position to take, and there's no reason it would be limited to this particular issue," she said.
"The government could decide tomorrow that anyone who spoke out about the war in Ukraine in a way that it didn't like is now subject to the same law and can be detained. They could make the same argument about climate change."
Other activists detained, threatened with deportation
Khalil, she says, has garnered an outpouring of support from across the country that gives him strength to carry on.
Nevertheless, she says he should not have been taken from his home while he's expecting his first child, and sent 1,930 kilometres away to a facility in another state.
"Their personal circumstances are very important, but, of course, Mahmoud's not the only person being held behind bars at the moment for engaging in perfectly lawful speech," Bhandari said.
On Monday, ICE detained Palestinian Mohsen Mahdawi — one of Khalil's friends and a fellow Columbia protester — at a Vermont immigration office where he had expected to be interviewed about finalizing his U.S. citizenship.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was arrested by masked and plainclothes agents in March, roughly a year after she co-authored an opinion piece in a student paper calling on the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide."
Columbia's Yunseo Chung, a Korean American who has lived in the U.S. since she was seven, is fighting the Trump administration's attempts to have her deported after she participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
It's not clear how many student activists are in immigration detention, but when asked about Ozturk's case, Rubio told reporters he's revoked nearly 300 visas from "lunatics that are tearing things up."
Bhandari says this is "no ordinary immigration enforcement."
"Nothing about this is normal," she said. "This is a program of censorship using immigration law to achieve its ends."
She says it's one of several tools the administration is deploying, including investigating private law firms, and witholding funds from universities that fall afoul of Trump's agenda.
In Canada, Conservative Leader Pierre Poillievre vowed in a recent campaign stop to end the "woke influence in federal support for university research."
Bhandari says the ACLU is asking a federal court to deem Khlalil's detention, and the government's use of the Immigration and Nationality Act, unlawful and unconstitutional.
In a separate case in a New Jersey federal court, Khalil is challenging his arrest, detention and transfer to Louisiana.
While the Trump administration has flouted court orders before — most recently one from the U.S. Supreme Court to facilitate the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador — Bhandari remains hopeful.
"We would fully expect that if any court orders the release of either Ms. Ozturk, Mr. Khalil, or anyone else that's currently in a detention facility, that the government will abide by that, as they have to," Bhandari said.
With files from Reuters. Interview with Esha Bhandari produced by Cassie Argao
