The Trump government has clarified why the Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is confronted with deportation, in response to claims that he was the target of his free expression.
Khalil, 30, a graduate student and legal American resident who was involved in the Anti-Israeli protests at Columbia University last year, was arrested by immigration and customs enforcement and domestic security agents on the campus on March 8.
At that time, the Trump government said that it was arrested under a rarely used law from 1952 that gives the Minister of Foreign Affairs the authority to deport non-citizens if he or she determines that their continuous presence in the United States would threaten foreign policy.
But in a legal application on Sunday, the Ministry of Justice claimed that Khalil consciously withheld information about his membership in certain organizations when he applied for a permanent stay last year.
The submission accuses Khalil – a resident of Syria and a citizen of Algeria – of not disclosing his employment as a program manager by the Syria office in the British embassy in Beirut and his involvement in the Divest Club of Columbia University, according to NBC News.
The DOJ also says that Khalil deliberately omitted the application that he was employed by the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees as a political officer.
The office was taken under fire after the United Nations admitted that various staff members may have been involved in Hamas' on October 7, 2023 at Israel – who led the United States to stop the financing for the international group.
However, a spokesperson for the agency said that in 2023 Khalil was an unpaid intern, but was never with the staff. The spokesperson added that the group does not have the position of the political affairs officer in his job descriptions.
Columbia University Graduate Student Mahmoud Khalil, 30, was arrested by immigration and customs enforcement and homeland Security Investigations agents on the campus on March 8
Every omissions of the application from permanent citizens can, however, be considered as fraud and deliberate incorrect presentation of matters as an applicant 'material facts incorrectly' in order to hide 'group memberships' that would not be eligible for the status of permanent residence permit, according to the American citizenship and immigration services.
“It is a black letter law that is a wrong representation in this context,” says the submission.
“Thus Khalil's allegations are the first amendment a red herring, and there is an independent basis for sufficiently justifying the removal to conclude Khalil's constitutional claim here.”
Nevertheless, the government will have to prove to an immigration court that Khalil deliberately did not announce the information – and that if he had announced his involvement in the groups, he would not be eligible for permanent place of residence.
The defense of Khalil is planning to respond to the allegations on Tuesday afternoon, CNN reports.
“These late-breaking, after-the-fittens accusations, which they are, as they are, in the first place show that the government should know the supposed 'foreign policy' grounds for Mahmoud's removal absolutely and unconstitutional,” his lawyer Baher Azmy told NBC News.
He further said that the new claims of the federal governments cannot change the obvious fact that the government has admitted that it will be punished in the most autocratic way for his constitutionally protected speech. '
The supporters of Khalil have argued that his arrest is a violation of his first amendment on free speech
He was very involved in the anti-Israeli protests at Columbia University last year
After his arrest, Khalil was briefly held in an ice facility in New Jersey, but was immediately moved to an immigration -detention center in Louisiana after the federal government argued that the detention center was unsuitable in New Jersey because the facility had to be dealt with and a lack of space, according to CNN.
However, a petition for his release is moving forward in the courts of New Jersey, where his lawyers first submitted the case, a judge in New York ruled last week.
That judge also blocked his immediate deportation, so that his legal challenge could be considered.
Nevertheless, the application from the Trump government argued on Sunday that the state of New Jersey misses the jurisdiction to hear the Khalil case.
In the meantime, hundreds of people have come out to protest against Khalil's arrest last week, and various Democrats raised alarms after he was arrested but not accused of a crime.
However, State Secretary Marco Rubio has fired back to critics of Khalil's arrest and says that it is 'not about freedom of expression'.
Hundreds of people came out to protest against Khalil's arrest last week
'If you come to the United States as a visitor, what a visa is, that is how this person entered this country, on a visitor visa, you are here as a visitor. We can deny you that visa, “argued the American top diplomat.
If someone said they were planning to come to the US if a student 'and all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities' and universities would lock up, they would be denied the visa, Rubio said.
He added: “If you actually do that once you are in this country on such a visa, we will withdraw it.”
Rubio also said that if they end up on a green card with such activities, the US will kick someone out.
“This is not about free speech. This is about people who do not have the right to start in the United States to start, “said the State Secretary.
'Nobody is entitled to a student visa. Nobody is entitled to a green card, “Rubio added.
He said that the US can deny one for 'almost every reason'.
That included “a supporter of Hamas and coming to our universities and turning it upside down, and being complicit in what clear crimes are of vandalization are complicit in closing learning institutions.”
