The Justice Department found a new legal rationale to keep Mahmoud Khalil in custody after a federal judge ordered that the Columbia University graduate be released.
On Wednesday, New Jersey District Judge Michael E. Farbiarz said the Trump administration could no longer hold Khalil using an infrequently-cited law that he believes is likely unconstitutional.
The law gives the secretary of state the power and discretion to order the deportation of any illegal immigrant who presents ‘potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.’
The current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, invoked this law after Khalil’s arrest in March, arguing that his continued presence in the country would undermine America’s ability to combat anti-Semitism and its ‘efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.’
Khalil was involved in pro-Palestine protests on Columbia’s campus in Manhattan, often serving as a conduit between university administrators and the students who had set up encampments to rail against Israel‘s war in Gaza.
The reason Rubio had to initially claim Khalil undermines US foreign policy goals is because Khalil is a legal permanent resident with a green card.
Crucially, Judge Fabiarz did not immediately order the release of Khalil, instead giving Justice Department lawyers until Friday to respond and allowing them wiggle room to detain Khalil for other reasons.
Justice Department lawyers have abandoned their prior reasoning for detaining Mahmoud Khalil. They now argue he lied on his green card application by not disclosing his memberships to Palestinian aid groups (Pictured: Khalil at a pro-Palestine protest at Columbia University in October 2023
Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially said Khalil’s detention was because he undermined America’s ability to combat anti-Semitism and its ‘efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States’
In a legal filing on Friday afternoon, the government has settled on a new reason to hold him at an ICE facility in Louisiana, where he’s been for more than three months.
The Trump administration claimed that Khalil lied on his green card application in March 2024 by failing to disclose his membership in certain organizations.
Lawyers for the government said Khalil did not mention his work with a United Nations agency that assists Palestinian refugees.
They also claim he didn’t disclose his membership in Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student group involved in the rowdy demonstrations at the college in 2023 and 2024.
Finally, Khalil allegedly did not list his ongoing employment with the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, after 2022.
Khalil’s lawyers have acknowledged that he had an internship at the UN agency through Columbia, but argued that he considered it to be coursework, not a job.
They have said Khalil wasn’t officially part of Apartheid Divest but rather served as a mediator. They also claimed he took on this role after he had applied for permanent residency.
They have also said that his employment in Syria ended when he said it did, a point the judge agreed with them on. The judge has yet to rule on the other two claims from the government.
The protests Khalil participated in last spring became violent, eventually ending with students breaking into a building on campus and occupying it. NYPD officers retook the building by force and made 112 arrests
Khalil is married to US citizen Dr. Noor Abdalla and was in detention when his first child was born two months ago
Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s lawyers told The New York Times on Friday that the allegations against his client were ‘completely bogus and completely retaliatory for his First Amendment activity, speaking out on what’s going on in Gaza.’
The protests Khalil participated in last spring became violent, eventually ending with students breaking into a building on campus and occupying it. NYPD officers retook the building by force and made 112 arrests.
With the government’s new three-pronged rationale for holding Khalil, the judge declined to release him in accordance with his Wednesday order.
In his most recent order, the judge pointed out that Khalil’s lawyers have not ‘put forward factual evidence’ rebutting the legality of detaining him on the basis of allegedly fudging his permanent residency application.
The shifting legal strategy for Trump administration lawyers in this case has diverged from the political rhetoric used against Khalil by President Donald Trump himself.
Right after Khalil’s arrest, Trump said his detention was ‘the first of many to come’ before calling him a ‘Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student.’
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, accused Mr. Khalil of ‘siding with terrorists.’
So far, the Justice Department hasn’t disclosed any possible connection between Khalil and Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and killed around 1,200 civilians.
Khalil is married to US citizen Dr. Noor Abdalla and was in detention when his first child was born two months ago.
