'Very Dark Stuff': Judge Rules Palestine Activist Mahmoud Khalil Can Be Deported

A U.S. immigration judge in Louisiana on Friday ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident and former Columbia University graduate student arrested last month after protesting Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, can be deported, a decision that came despite the Trump administration admitting the imminently expecting father committed no crime and was being targeted solely for constitutionally protected speech.

Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans said that she lacked the legal authority to question the determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Khalil was deportable. Earlier this week, Comans gave the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until Friday to produce evidence that Khalil is eligible for deportation.

No such evidence was provided other than Rubio's assertion that he reserves the right to order Khalil's expulsion under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.

Rubio admitted that Khalil's "past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations... are otherwise lawful," prompting Marc van der Hout, one of Khalil's attorneys, to assert "that this is merely about targeting Mahmoud's free speech rights about Palestine."

Khalil—who calls himself and is widely considered a political prisoner—now has until April 23 to apply for relief, or face deportation to Syria, where he was born in 1995 in a refugee camp for Palestinians, or Algeria, where he has citizenship.

"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," Khalil told Comans after she announced her decision. "Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process."

"This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family," Khalil added. "I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months."

Van der Hout said that "today, we saw our worst fears play out: Mahmoud was subject to a charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair hearing, and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent."

Khalil—who last year finished his graduate studies at Columbia University, where he helped lead campus protests against Israel's annihilation of Gaza—was arrested at his New York home by plainclothes DHS officers on March 8 before being transferred to New Jersey and then Louisiana.

The 30-year-old's American wife, Noor Abdallah—who is nine months pregnant—has said Khalil's arrest "felt like a kidnapping because it was."

Khalil was targeted following U.S. President Donald Trump's issuance of an executive order authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who take part in pro-Palestine demonstrations.

Last month, Judge Jesse Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that since Khalil was detained by DHS in New Jersey when he lodged a legal challenge to his detention, his case should be transferred to the Garden State.

That federal habeas corpus case will continue despite Friday's ruling. Following Comans' decision, the judge in the New Jersey case, Michael E. Farbiarz of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, ordered both the Trump administration and Khalil's lawyers to immediately report to his court.

Numerous right-wing Israel supporters—including the White House—celebrated Comans' ruling.

Civil liberties defenders, meanwhile, decried Friday's decision.

"Today, reading from a pre-written decision, an immigration judge rubber-stamped a shameful determination by Secretary of State Rubio stating that one's beliefs can lead to deportation. We should all be deeply concerned," Diala Shamas, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement.

"We will continue to stand alongside Mahmoud in his fight to come home to Noor, and in his determination to keep speaking out for Palestinian freedom," Shamas added. "This is just the beginning."

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, said on social media: "We cannot allow the Trump administration to end our constitutional rights. The right to free speech obviously includes the right to protest the Israeli government's genocide of Palestinians."

"This fascism won't end with Mahmoud Khalil," she added. "It's a threat to all of us."

Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, said on the social media site X that "this is an unbelievably dark day and a direct attack on our fundamental civil liberties."

Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relgations, said in a statement that "this Louisiana immigration judge's dangerous, unconstitutional ruling allowing the deportation of a legal permanent resident because the current administration wants to punish him for exercising his First Amendment right to criticize the Israeli government's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza must not stand."

"Although today's ruling is just the first step in a long legal process, it should be alarming to all Americans who cherish the Bill of Rights and basic freedoms like free speech," Awad added. "We are confident that federal courts will see through the Trump administration's lawless attack on free speech and that the movement against the Israeli government's genocide will continue to grow in our nation, despite these Orwellian attempts to suppress free speech."

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted that "Mahmoud Khalil expressed his political point of view peacefully."

"That's supposed to be permitted in a democracy," he added. "If this egregious assault on civil liberties stands, what's to stop Trump from arresting American citizens who support any cause his regime doesn't like?"

Khalil's persecution is part of a wider campaign targeting noncitizens who protest Israel's annihilation of Gaza and advocate for Palestinian rights.

Last month, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of an artificial intelligence-powered "catch and revoke" program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas. Rubio said that nearly 300 students have had their visas revoked and could be deported.

"Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," he said of the student activists opposing one of the great slaughters of the 21st century.

On Wednesday, DHS announced the launch of a task force to surveil immigrants' social media posts, including those of around 1.5 million foreign students, for alleged antisemitism. While DHS did not say how antisemitism would be defined, critics note that the Trump administration has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition, which conflates opposition to Zionism—the settler-colonial movement for a Jewish homeland in Palestine—with hatred of Jews.

Khalil's advocates vowed to keep fighting.

"This is not over, and our fight continues," van der Hout said. "If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes."

"We will continue working tirelessly until Mahmoud is free and rightfully returned home to his family and community," he added.

Noor Zafar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said, "The fight to bring Mahmoud home is far from over."

"We will continue undeterred to press for his release after this startling escalation of the Trump administration's war on dissent," Zafar added. "We will fiercely defend his and others' right to speak freely about Palestine or any other issue without fear of detention and deportation."