Immigration judge orders Mahmoud Khalil to be deported

A Louisiana judge has ordered activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil to be deported to either Syria or Algeria for allegedly failing to disclose information on his green card application.

The development was revealed in documents filed in federal court by Khalil’s attorneys on Wednesday.

“This Court further finds that the Respondent understood the consequences and that the candid disclosure of his affiliations might lead to an additional line of questioning and the ultimate denial of his application for conditional permanent residency. This Court finds that Respondent’s lack of candor on his I-485 was not an oversight by an uninformed, uneducated applicant. This Court finds that the Respondent’s purposeful, non-disclosure was not a misrepresentation by another which imputed consequences to the Respondent,” said immigration judge Jamee Comans in her order.

Comans’s order comes despite a June ruling from New Jersey District Judge Michael E. Farbiarz, which determined that the Trump administration cannot detain or deport Khalil while the court considers whether or not he is being targeted over his Palestine advocacy.

Khalil’s attorneys have sent a letter to Farbiarz, informing him that they will challenge the Comans’s decision.

“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,”said Khalil in a statement. “When their first effort to deport me was set to fail, they resorted to fabricating baseless and ridiculous allegations in a bid to silence me for speaking out and standing firmly with Palestine, demanding an end to the ongoing genocide. Such fascist tactics will never deter me from continuing to advocate for my people’s liberation.”

“When the immigration prosecutor, judge, and jailor all answer to Donald Trump, and that one man is eager to weaponize the system in a desperate bid to silence Mahmoud Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident whose only supposed sin is that he stands against an ongoing genocide in Palestine, this is the result,”said Ramzi Kassem, co-director of CLEAR and a member of Khalil’s legal team. “A plain-as-day First Amendment violation that also puts on sharp display the rapidly freefalling credibility of the entire U.S. immigration system.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) condemned the ruling in a social media post.

“The Trump Administration’s illegal abduction and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil has always been in retaliation for speaking out against U.S. complicity in the genocide in Palestine,” she tweeted. “They’re continuing to weaponize immigration courts and will stop at nothing to try and silence him.”

Khalil was arrested by federal agents in New York City on March 8. Despite being a permanent U.S. resident, his green card and student visa were revoked. He was held at a Louisiana detention facility for 104 days before being released in June. He has never been charged with a crime.

Prior to his arrest, Khalil had attended Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and had been a lead negotiator for Palestine activists during the university’s Gaza Solidarity encampments.

Khalil’s case was just one part of the Trump administration’s war on Palestine activism, which has been carried out under the guise of an effort to stop antisemitism. The crackdown has included deportations, federal investigations, and the withholding of funding to multiple universities.

Many of the White House’s tactics had been laid out in Project Esther, a policy plan unveiled by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in 2024.

Many schools have willingly complied with the administration’s repression. This month, the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) provided the Department of Education with the private information of more than 150 students, staff, and faculty for Trump’s antisemitism probe.

“It is obvious that the Department of Education and UC Berkeley are using the very office meant to protect civil rights as a Trojan horse to silence anyone who condemns the genocide of the Palestinian people, target those who reject the conflation of Judaism with the genocidal Zionist regime, and disempower those of us who call on our academic institutions to uphold their integrity and honor the BDS mandates that their communities demand,” said the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter in a statement on Instagram.

Michael Arria is Mondoweiss’ U.S. correspondents. His work has appeared in In These Times, The Appeal, and Truthout. He is the author of Medium Blue: The Politics of MSNBC. Follow him on x at @michaelarria.

Photo: Mondoweiss