Choose to listen to arguments over detained former Columbia College pupil Mahmoud Khalil

Legal professionals for an activist who led pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia College are anticipated to face off Wednesday in court docket with federal officers who need him deported.

A federal choose on Monday briefly halted Mahmoud Khalil’s removing, barring the federal government from deporting him earlier than Wednesday’s listening to in New York.

Khalil was arrested by federal immigration authorities Saturday night time at his university-owned house. Amy Greer, Khalil’s legal professional, stated officers have been performing on a State Division order to revoke Khalil’s pupil visa and inexperienced card. Khalil was despatched to a detention middle in Jena, Louisiana. He won’t be current on the New York listening to, his legal professionals stated.

Khalil graduated in December with a grasp’s diploma from Columbia College’s College of Worldwide and Public Affairs. The 30-year-old is married to an American citizen who’s eight months pregnant.

President Trump stated Monday that Khalil’s arrest was simply the primary “of many to return” amid the White Home’s crackdown on college students and alleged “agitators” protesting Israel’s warfare with Hamas.

White Home spokesperson Karoline Leavitt stated Tuesday that Khalil was “given the privilege of coming to this nation to review at one in every of our nation’s best universities and schools – and he took benefit of that chance, of that privilege by siding with terrorists.”

Leavitt alleged that Khalil had distributed flyers on Columbia’s campus that have been “pro-Hamas.” 

“We’ve got a zero-tolerance coverage of siding with terrorists, interval,” Leavitt stated.

Whereas Khalil has been accused of creating statements in assist of Hamas, he has not been publicly accused of offering any materials assist. His legal professionals say he is being punished for exercising protected speech.

Khalil’s attorneys stated Monday in a press release that Khalil was “chosen for instance to stifle totally lawful dissent in violation of the First Modification.” 

Khalil’s arrest got here “in assist of President Trump’s government orders prohibiting antisemitism,” the Division of Homeland Safety stated in a press release. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on social media that “we might be revoking the visas and/or inexperienced playing cards of Hamas supporters in America to allow them to be deported.”

The arrest was criticized by some college students and professors at Columbia College and led to protests Monday in Manhattan.

Katrina Armstrong, the college’s interim president, known as the arrest and the federal authorities’s suspension of $400 million in federal funds attributable to alleged antisemitism on campus “a difficult second for our neighborhood” in a message to the Columbia College neighborhood on Monday.  

“All eyes are on Columbia at current. It falls to us to make sure our College, and certainly the values of upper training extra broadly, survive and thrive,” Armstrong wrote.