Anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil added President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to a lawsuit demanding his release Thursday night, arguing that Trump administration officials have violated his constitutional rights and are engaging in a “hostile campaign” against pro-Palestinian advocates.
The amended petition accuses Trump, Rubio and other administration officials of “targeted” and “retaliatory detention” to “prevent” the Columbia University graduate from espousing his views and to “chill other individuals from expressing views sympathetic to Palestinians.”
“Over the last year and a half, Mr. Khalil has been a mediator, an active participant in, and at times the public face of, student protests on Columbia’s campus related to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza,” reads the 33-page petition filed in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, where Khalil seeks to have his lawsuit heard.
“The Trump administration has made no secret of its opposition to those protests and has repeatedly threatened to weaponize immigration law to punish noncitizens who have participated,” it continues.
Lawyers for Khalil argue that the grounds the Trump administration seeks to deport under “have been rarely invoked” and are typically “reserved for cases involving high-ranking government officials or an alleged terrorist removable on other grounds and subject to high-profile prosecutions in their country of origin.”
“It does not appear to have ever been applied to any person for engaging in First Amendment protected speech,” the filing states.
Khalil — a Palestinian descendant who lived in Syria — was arrested at his Columbia University-owned apartment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Saturday.
The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil, a green card holder who is married to an American who is eight months pregnant with his child, over his role in disruptive and at times violent anti-Israel protests at Columbia last summer.
“This is an individual who organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish-American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda flyers with the logo of Hamas,” White House press secretary Karolin Leavitt claimed earlier this week.
The Trump administration is moving to deport Khalil under Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows any “alien whose presence or activities in the United States” are determined by the secretary of state to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” to be removed, according to the Khalil’s lawyers.
“The Rubio Determination and the government’s subsequent actions, including its ongoing detention of Mr. Khalil in rural Louisiana, isolating him from his wife, community, and legal team, are plainly intended as retaliation and punishment for Mr. Khalil’s protected speech and intended to silence, or at the very least restrict and chill, his speech now and in the future, all in violation of the First Amendment,” the complaint argues.
The complaint further claims that Rubio’s apparent decision to revoke Khalil’s green card and detain him “also violate his due process rights” and is “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, and viewpoint discriminatory in violation of the First Amendment.”
The amended lawsuit asks the Southern District of New York to “assume jurisdiction over this matter; Vacate and set aside Respondents’ unlawful Policy of targeting noncitizens for removal based on First Amendment protected speech advocating for Palestinian rights; Vacate and set aside the Rubio Determination” and “order the release of Petitioner” among other demands.
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that he expects “more people” to have their student visas or green cards revoked by the Trump administration.
“This is not fundamentally about free speech, and to me, yes, it’s about national security, but it’s also more importantly about who do we as an American public decide gets to join our national community?” Vance told “The Ingraham Angle” host Laura Ingraham on Fox News. “And if the secretary of state and the president decide this person shouldn’t be in America, and they have no legal right to stay here, it’s as simple as that.”
“I think we’ll certainly see some people who get deported on student visas if we determine that it’s not in the best interest of the United States to have them in our country,” he continued.
“I don’t know how high that number is going to be, but you’re going to see more people.”
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