A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to provide a full account of the legal basis for its attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student whose case has become a political flashpoint over free speech and immigration enforcement.
Judge Michael Farbiarz of the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, instructed the Trump administration on Wednesday to submit by Thursday morning a list of every known instance where federal officials have invoked what Khalil’s lawyers say is a “rarely used” immigration law being used against Khalil. That statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(4)(C), allows deportation when the secretary of state finds a noncitizen’s presence in the country could harm U.S. foreign policy interests.
Khalil came to the United States on a student visa and previously held a green card he obtained last year before it was revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He was arrested in March at his New York City apartment and has been detained without criminal charges. The administration says his activism and public criticism of Israel amid the Gaza war pose a foreign policy threat.
“The foreign policy of the United States champions core American interests and American citizens and condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio wrote in a memorandum last month detailing the administration’s basis for deporting Khalil.
Farbiarz’s order comes after an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled last month that the government could deport Khalil based on Rubio’s memo describing Khalil’s role in antisemitic protests on U.S. campuses. Farbiaz separately ruled last month that Khalil can still challenge his detention before his court.
Khalil’s lawyers argue the case improperly conflates domestic protests with foreign policy concerns and violates his free speech rights.
Despite the rare use of the immigration statute in Khalil’s case, one notable use was in 1995 against Mexican official Mario Ruiz Massieu, which Trump’s sister, the late U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, ruled unconstitutional in 1996. The president’s sister did not establish a binding legal precedent in other courts, and an appeals court later reversed her decision, though it did so on technical grounds.
The judge’s demand for detailed historical records signals growing scrutiny of the administration’s use of foreign policy-related deportation powers against U.S.-based activists.
JUDGE RULES ANTI-ISRAEL COLUMBIA GRADUATE MAHMOUD KHALIL CAN CHALLENGE ‘UNLAWFUL’ DETENTION
Earlier on Wednesday, a federal appeals court panel denied the Trump administration’s request to lift a judge’s order to transfer detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk from Louisiana to Vermont.
Last week, a federal judge in Vermont also declined a bid by the administration to keep pro-Palestinian Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi detained pending further proceedings in his case.
