An immigration judge in Louisiana ordered the Federal Government on Tuesday to provide evidence to justify its attempt to deport a student activist from Columbia University.
At a hearing, Judge Jamee Comans gave the Federal Government 24 hours to deliver his evidence against Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States and prominent pro-Palestinian activist, said Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s lawyers, who attended the audience.
“The Government has not produced a single crushing of evidence to date to support any of its accusations or charges in this case, including its scandalous position that the mere presence and activities of Mahmoud in this country have adverse consequences of potentially serious foreign policy,” said Van der Hout.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Khalil, 30, who has a green card that gives him a permanent residence in the United States, was arrested outside his university apartment in New York City in March and moved to a detention center in Louisiana.
The Trump administration has cited a provision rarely used in the immigration law that allows the Secretary of State to deport someone if it is determined that the person “would have serious adverse consequences of foreign policy for the United States.”
The government also claimed that Khalil retained information about his membership in certain organizations and did not reveal his employment in the Syrian office at the British embassy in Beirut in his application for permanent residence.
A Khalil lawyer said that government claims “mainly show that the government must know that the alleged reasons for ‘foreign policy’ for the elimination of Mahmoud are absurd and unconstitutional.”
The National Security Department has said that Khalil “directed activities aligned with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization”, but a Khalil lawyer has said that there is no evidence that he has provided any support for a terrorist organization.
The White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that Khalil “protests from organized groups that not only interrupted the class of the university campus and harassed American Jewish students and made them feel insecure in their own university campus” and “distributed Pro-Shields propaganda, fliators with the Hamas logo.”
It is not publicly known that Khalil in front of criminal charges.
Comans, the immigration judge, scheduled a hearing for Friday, when he will decide whether Khalil can be withdrawn from the United States or order it. If it is considered deportable, Khalil’s legal team could request the relief of elimination.
Van der Hout, one of his lawyers, said that Comans’ intention to govern at the end of this week offers “no realistic opportunity for Mahmoud and his lawyers to challenge this position without foundation.”
“If this turns out to be what happens on Friday, it would be a trial without hurry that would completely deprive Mahmoud of any process because it is a basis of our legal system,” said Van der Hout.
Khalil and his wife, an American citizen, are waiting for the birth of their first child this month. On early Tuesday, his wife, Noor Abdalla, wrote a letter to Khalil.
“I miss you more and more every day,” he wrote, “already measure that the days bring us closer to the arrival of our son, he torments me the uncertainty that looks at me, the possibility that you are not there for this monumental moment.”
