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Before he made hearts in a courtroom, Khalil defended 'armed resistance' at Columbia

Before he made hearts in a courtroom, Khalil defended 'armed resistance' at Columbia

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Before he made hearts in a courtroom, Khalil defended 'armed resistance' at Columbia

In a crucial immigration court case, a judge has sided with the Trump administration’s right to deport a foreign student, here on a student visa, who publicly supported Hamas.

Judge Jamee Comans’ order does not mean Mahmoud Khalil is being immediately deported since the judge gave Khalil’s attorneys until April 23 to request a stay of deportation. 

New hearing for Garcia will expose truth about innocence 

Chad Groening, AFN.net

Despite a legal setback for the Trump administration, an expert on immigration law predicts an alleged MS-13 gang member will eventually be deported to his native country.  

In a ruling late last week, the U.S. Supreme Court said the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia to U.S. soil. The native of El Salvador, who was identified by law enforcement as an MS-13 gang member, was whisked away by plane to the notorious Salvadoran prison that holds violent criminals

The administration later admitted it made a critical mistake, however, because Garcia’s court records state he should not be deported to El Salvador because he said his life was in danger. 

That mistake has been seized on by critics as a terrible violation of an innocent "Maryland man," but court papers suggest Garcia was simply concerned about a rival gang in El Salvador called Barrio 18. 

Art Arthur is an attorney and resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. He says the Trump administration admitted it removed Garcia in error and now he is returning to the U.S. for a proper deportation hearing in which the facts will come to light. 

“At which point," Arthur says, "the U.S. government will engage in a slightly more fulsome discussion, or analysis, of whether in fact he is an MS-13 member and whether the judge properly granted him the holding of removal."

Khalil, 30, an Algerian citizen, was detained March 8 by ICE agents for protesting against Israel while publicly defending and praising Hamas. For doing that he is accused of undermining U.S. national security goals and violating a 1952 law, the Immigration Nationality Act.

Ira Mehlman, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, says Khalil’s deportation case is not a matter of free speech after the foreign student publicly defended Hamas and its “armed resistance” against Israel.  

“It was about his disruption of campus life, and targeting the Jewish students primarily for harassment,” Mehlman says, “and for his association with the groups that took over Hamilton Hall and caused damage to that building last spring."

Khalil’s attorneys have attempted to make his deportation a free speech argument. If he can be targeted for “speaking out for Palestinians,” one of his attorneys warned last week, then everyone is a potential target of the Trump administration. 

Aware of his supporters in the courtroom last week, Khalil acknowledged them by forming the shape of a heart with his hands.  

Khalil, however, is on camera at a Columbia event in March 2024 defending Hamas and its “armed resistance” against Israel.

“We’ve tried armed resistance, which is legitimate under international law, but Israel calls it terrorism,” Khalil, speaking from a stage, tells the crowd at the event called “Palestine 101.”

For publicly defending Hamas, and advocating for violence against Jews, Khalil is accused of violating federal code that forbids a foreign visitor of endorsing or espousing terrorist activity.

Mehlman, who is familiar with that section of federal law, says the visa application specifically asks if the foreign visitor is associated with a terrorist group.

“Obviously it's not there because they expect anybody to say ‘yes’,” he observes, “but if they find out that in fact you do, they can remove you based on having misrepresented yourself on your application”

The graduate student is also a member of CUAD, or Columbia Apartheid Divest, which has also defended “armed resistance” in its writings. “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group stated last year on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack.

Khalil’s deportation is viewed by many as a crucial test case for the Trump administration and its executive authority. Being unable to deport a pro-Hamas foreigner could encourage left-wing legal groups to flood the courts with cases to keep their clients in the U.S.