Judge rules Mahmoud Khalil can be deported
NJ lawsuit filed by former Columbia student still pending
By: Ricardo Kaulessar
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... A U.S. immigration judge in Louisiana riled on April 11 [2025] that the Trump administration can move forward wit effort to depot former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.
.....
But the fate of the pro-Palestinian activist remains unclear with legal rewounds still be fought, including in a lawsuit filed by Khalil in New Jersey.
..... Assistant Chief Immigration Judge James Comans announced the decision in the LaSalalle Immigration Court in Jena, Louisiana, according to Reuters. The ruling hands President Donald Trump an early victory in his attempts to crack down on critics of Israel's military actions in Gaza.
..... The administration has said protests last spring [2024] created a threatening environment for Jewish students on campus while Khalil's attorney say his actions were protected by the U.S. Constitution's free-speech guarantees.
..... Khalil, 30, was arrested March 8 [2025] in the lobby of his student apartment building in New York City. The Syrian born Palestinian, a legal U.S. resident, has not been accursed of any crime, but the Trump administration has moved to deport him, arguing his presence has "adverse foreign policy consequences" for the United States.
..... Khalil is being held at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Facility in Jena.
..... But he also has a suit pending in federal court in New Jersey, where he was held for a few hours at an immigrant detention center in Elizabeth before being transferred south.
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The Americana Civil Liberties Union, one of the legal groups repressiveness Khalil, said in a statement after the hairnet that the judge's decision appeared to be "pre-written."
..... The judge gave Khalil;s attorneys until April 23 [2025] to seek a waiver to stop his deportation.
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Khalil adversed Judge Comans at the end of the hearing, saying, "I would like to quote what you said last time that there's nothing that's more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness," according to an ACLU statement. "Clearly what we witnessed today, [04/11/2025] neither of these principles w3ree present today [04/11/2025] in hits whole process.
..... "This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away form my family. I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearings for months."
..... His lawsuit argues the detention violates his rights to fee speech and due process, and that his case should behead in the Garden State. The government tired to get the case moved to Louisianan, where it would be heard by a more conservative judiciary, but a federal court rejected that bid.
..... The Trump administration has argued at it has the right to remove non-citizens under the 1952 Mitigation and Nationality Act.
..... Sectary of State Marco Rubio alleged in a recent letter that Khalil participated in "antisemitic protests and disruptive actives" at Columbia that "undermine U.S. efforts to combat antisemitism.
..... The administration has sought to remover other critics of Israel's fight against the terrorist organization Hamas. Khalil had served as a spokesman for protesters on the Columbia campus opposed to Israel's military operations in Gaza, which were a response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in which more than 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. Protesters have been outraged that the respond left tens of thousandth of Palestinian dead and wounded.
.... Khalil's lawyers says there client was engaging in constitutionally protected activity.
..... This story includes information from Reuters.