An immigration judge plans to decide as soon as this week whether or not Mahmoud Khalil – a former Columbia University student targeted by the Trump administration over his involvement in student-led protests – can be deported or not.
After a brief hearing on Tuesday (April 8) at the LaSalle Immigration Court in Jena, Judge Jamee Comans ordered attorneys for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to hand over evidence against Khalil, by the end of the business day on Wednesday. Comans said she will rule on, whether Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian who is a legal permanent U.S. resident, can be removed from the country at a hearing later this week.
Comans indicated that she intends to make a decision as quickly as possible since Khalil has already been held in immigration detention since early March.
“Your client’s detained and if he’s not removable I don’t want him detained,” Comans said. “I’m not gonna keep him detained while attorneys argue about his removability.”
Khalil’s case, which is playing out in both LaSalle Parish and New Jersey, has drawn international attention since Khalil was picked up in his New York City apartment last month by federal immigration agents as part of a Trump administration crackdown.
Khalil is being targeted because he worked with protesters during large protests against Israel’s war in Gaza on Columbia’s campus last year. Top officials in the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have accused Khalil of supporting Hamas, the group that controls the Gaza Strip, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.
But civil rights advocates say the administration is focusing on Khalil — as well as other student protesters swept up in recent ICE actions — over his political speech, violating his First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Khalil — who has been held in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center for about a month — appeared before an unusually crowded courtroom for the Tuesday hearing. Khalil sat alone at a desk facing the judge and a screen where his lawyers and his wife appeared. Khalil fingered Muslim prayer beads in his right hand as his lead attorney, Mark Van Der Hout, discussed with the judge how to proceed on the case.
Van Der Hout pushed for more time to prepare for the case against Kahlil’s deportation because his team had neither seen nor been able to respond to evidence from DHS attorneys. Comans repeatedly said a full hearing with the evidence would allow her to rule on whether Khalil should be deported or not.
She said if she orders Khalil removed, then his attorneys will have an opportunity to argue for some form of relief from deportation.
The matter before Comans is separate from a legal case his attorneys are pursuing in a New Jersey federal court. Attorneys in the New Jersey case are arguing that Khalil’s arrest and continued detention in federal immigration custody are unlawful. The Louisiana case is based on the Trump administration’s claims that Khalil should be deported.
On Tuesday, however, Comans said she would delay ruling until after DHS provides evidence backing up the Trump administration’s charges against Khalil.
In government filings, Khalil is charged with posing a serious threat to U.S. foreign policy. DHS, which is prosecuting the case, also claims Khalil intentionally withheld information about his former employment and about his membership in a Pro-Palestine university organization when he applied for his green card. He is being charged under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the Secretary of State to remove any non-citizen deemed to be a threat to U.S. foreign policy.
The government has until Wednesday (April 9) at 5 p.m. Central time to submit that evidence. Comans has set another hearing for Friday (April 11), during which she will rule.
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