In Khalil Case, Goverment Claims Authority to Deport Over Beliefs

NEW YORK – Faced with a deadline for an immigration judge to give the evidence of his attempted expulsion from the militant of Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, the federal government has rather submitted a brief memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing the authority of the Trump administration to explain the non -citizens whose presence in the country damages foreign policy.
The two-page memo, which was obtained by the Associated Press, does not include any criminal conduct by Khalil, a legal and a graduate American resident who was spokesperson for campus activists last year during major demonstrations against the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and the war in Gaza.
Rubio rather wrote that Khalil could be expelled for his beliefs.
He said that even if Khalil’s activities were “otherwise legal”, letting him stay in the country would undermine “American policy to combat anti-Semitism in the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”
“The tolerance of anti-Semitic conduct and disturbing protests in the United States would seriously undermine this important objective of foreign policy,” wrote Rubio in un dated memo.
The submission was filed Wednesday after judge Jamee Comans ordered the government to produce its proofs against Khalil before a hearing on Friday if it can continue to hold it during the immigration procedure.
Khalil’s lawyers said the memo has proven that the Trump administration “targeted Mahmoud’s rights to the freedom of expression on Palestine”.
“After a month of hiding place from the ball since the unjust arrest of Mahmoud’s night in New York and took him to a distant detention center in Louisiana, the immigration authorities finally admitted that they had no cases against him,” said lawyers, Marc Van der Hout and Johnny Sinodis, in a statement.
“There is not a single reduction in evidence that Mahmoud’s presence in America is a threat,” they added.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Security, Tricia McLaughlin, did not answer questions to find out if he had additional evidence against Khalil, writing in a statement sent by email: “DHS filed evidence, but the jars of the immigration court are not available for the public.”
Khalil, a 30 -year -old Palestinian from ethnicity who was born in Syria, was arrested on March 8 in New York and taken to a detention center in Louisiana. He recently completed his lessons for a master’s degree in Columbia’s School of International Affairs. His wife, an American citizen, is expected to give birth this month.
Khalil categorically rejected the allegations of anti -Semitism, accusing the Trump administration in a letter sent from prison last month of “targeting me within the framework of a broader strategy to suppress dissent”.
“Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual situation,” he added, “I hope to be free to see the birth of my firstborn.”
Although Rubio’s memo note refers to additional documents, including a “profile of subject from Mahmoud Khalil” and a letter from the Homeland Security ministry, the government did not submit these documents to the immigration court, according to Khalil lawyers.
The memo also calls for the deportation of a second legal permanent resident, whose name is exposed in the file.
The Trump administration has shown billions of dollars in government funding from universities and their hospital systems affiliated in recent weeks as part of what is said to be a campaign against anti -Semitism on university campuses, but what, according to criticism, is a repression of freedom of expression. To recover the money, the administration told universities to punish the demonstrators and to make other changes.
The US government has also revoked international students’ visas that criticized Israel or accused it of mistreating the Palestinians.
At the time of Khalil’s arrest, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Security accused Khalil of directing activities “aligned on Hamas”, referring to the militant group who attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
But the government has produced no evidence connecting Khalil to Hamas and has made no reference to the group in its last deposit.
Meanwhile, lawyers for Yunseo Chung, 21, another Columbia student and legal resident that the Ministry of Homeland Security seeks to expel, included the letter Rubio as an exhibition in court documents filed Thursday evening at the Manhattan Federal Court.
The lawyers asked a judge to let them obtain government documents linked to the targeting of their client, including the one who refers to him by his name linked to the decision of the State Department to move to deport it.
Chung, who was arrested for offense during a recent Barnard College sit-in to protest against the expulsion of students who participated in pro-Palestinian activism, was ordered released while his legal challenge is underway.