The former student of the Columbia University arrested on the campus and scheduled for deportation has submitted evidence that shows that claims underlie the government’s case are doubtful.
NBC News reviewed more than 100 pages of documents presented by the federal government in its effort to deport Mahmoud Khalil, as well as evidence filed By Khalil’s legal team, including its permanent residence application, several articles on its activism and contracts and letters that detail internship and work experience.
In some cases, the government seems to be depending on not verified tabloid items on Khalil. In others, government statements about it are clearly wrong because the deadlines do not coincide.
The lawyers of Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States of 30 years, have argued that he was arrested on March 8 for his protected speech and for playing a key role in the Pro-Palestinian Student Protest movement last year.
Khalil’s legal team declined to comment for this article.
The administration of President Donald Trump, who says that he has revoked the visas of hundreds of international students, particularly attacked to those who participate in political activism, has presented changing arguments against Khalil, including claims two weeks after his arrest he lied in the United States Residence Application forms, a deported crime.
Finally, government officials said Khalil supported Hamas, a terrorist group; Jewish students felt insecure with their activism; and that its presence continues “would have serious adverse consequences of foreign policy for the United States.”
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Monday.
Khalil denounced anti -Semitism
Immigration judge Jamee Comans ruled last week that Khalil can be deported at the discretion of Secretary of Secretary Marco Rubio under the immigration and nationality law of 1952, which establishes that any non -citizen can be eliminated if the Secretary of State considers that his presence threatens the foreign policy of the United States.
Rubio characterized Khalil’s activities as an anti -Semitic and, therefore, contrary to the foreign policy of the United States. Comans knocked down an attempt to obtain underlying evidence and question Rubio.
Khalil’s lawyer presented evidence that rebuked the accusations of anti -Semitism in the Rubio Memorandum.
Khalil’s legal team cited an article from April 2024 as evidence. In him, Khalil was asked what he would say to Jewish students who felt insecure on the campus.
“I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined,” he replied. “They go hand in hand. Anti -Semitism and any form of racism do not take place on campus and in this movement.”
In the article, Khalil also pointed out that some members of the Columbia protest camp last year were Jews and had Easter headquarters. “They are an integral part of this movement,” Khalil said.
Rubio’s memorandum, which is the main evidence of the Government in its case of deportation against Khalil, said that although Khalil’s beliefs, statements or associations were “legal”, allowing him to remain in the country “the policy of the United States to combat combat anti -Semitism throughout the world and in the United States, in addition to the efforts to protect Jewish students from the Jewish students of Hariz and violence. united “.
One of Khalil’s lawyers, Marc van der Hout, said that such statements of the government are “accusations unfounded in an attempt to hide from the fact that his true motivation to present all these charges against Mahmoud is to silence him.”
Erroneous characterization of Khalil’s labor history
The government’s case includes the permanent residence application of Khalil of March 2024.
In the application, Khalil wrote that he was a student graduated at Columbia University and was a programs manager at the British Embassy in Beirut from June 2018 to December 2022.
The Trump administration claimed that Khalil also omitted “continuous employment” at the British Embassy in Beirut “beyond 2022”. As evidence, the Government cited an image of a Khalil profile published for the next conference of the International Development Society in June 2025. The profile declared that it works at the Embassy.
But a spokesman for the Development and Commonwealth Office of Great Britain said in a comment to NBC News that Khalil “does not work for the FCDO and has not done so for more than two years.”
Khalil’s “Extension of the Fixed Term Contract” with the British Embassy in Beirut includes an extension until December 20, 2022. The contract is dated November 1, 2022, and the British embassy in Beirut Seal is stamped in the document. The signatures of the Head of Corporate Service and Khalil appear in the document.
The International Development Society, organizers of the conference, said in a statement that Khalil was not scheduled to participate in the next event in June, although he participated in 2020.
The Government claimed that Khalil also did not reveal that he was a “political affairs officer” at the United Nations Agency for Aid and Works for Palestine Refugees, known as Unrwa, in New York in 2023, and was involved with the Apartheid group of the University of the Columbia Group.
The Trump administration cited articles, including New York Post, stating that Khalil was a political affairs officer in Unrwa based on his LinkedIn profile.
A UNRWA spokesman said that Khalil completed an unpaid six -month -old internship in New York in 2023. The spokesman added that he was not a staff member, nor was he on the payroll of the agency.
“UNRWA does not have in its human resources the work title of ‘Official of Political Affairs’,” said the spokesman.
Khalil’s legal team also presented a letter from Unrwa to Columbia University informing the school that Khalil was “selected for an internship in the representative office of the United Nations Agency for Relief and Works for the Internship in the representative office of the Agency of Relief and Work of the United Nations for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in New York.” It was dated May 17, 2023.
In another letter delivered in evidence, Columbia University said Khalil completed an internship in Unrwa for three credits in 2023. The letter is dated April 10, 2025 and signed by an associate director of the Khalil Postgraduate Program.
Columbia University declined to comment on Monday, citing students’ privacy obligations.
The government was based on tabloid stories
Similarly, the Government cited several articles such as evidence, including the New York Post, The Times of India and Washington Free Beacon, who mentioned Khalil’s participation with the divestment of the Columbia University University Group Apartheid (Cuad), which the Government said he omitted that his request for residence.
The articles were published at the end of April 2024 and then, a month after Khalil submitted his permanent residence application.
An article of the Post New York published on March 9, 2025, and cited as evidence of the government, said that Khalil faced a “radical group, Columbia United Apartheid Rivest (Cuad), which sympathizes with terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and demands the” end of Western civilization. ”
Khalil was a negotiator and spokesman for the student protesters of the University of Columbia, which included a block between a coalition of groups in Columbia that participated in the actions on the campus, said Van Hout said previously.
“Cuad is a collection of organizations and there is no individual membership, so the accusation would be completely without merit, even if all government evidence was not one month after Mahmoud submitted his application,” said Van der Hout.
Khalil has until April 23 to request relief and can remain in the United States until then.
