US accuses Columbia pupil Mahmoud Khalil of hiding UNRWA ties on visa software
The U.S. authorities has alleged that Columbia College pupil and pro-Palestinian demonstrator Mahmoud Khalil withheld that he labored for a United Nations Palestinian reduction company in his visa software, saying that needs to be grounds for deportation.
The U.N. company referred to as UNRWA supplies meals and healthcare to Palestinian refugees and has turn into a flashpoint within the Israeli warfare in Gaza. Israel contends that 12 UNRWA staff had been concerned in Hamas’ assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, main the U.S. to halt funding of the group.
UNRWA stated Khalil was briefly an unpaid intern.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on March 8 detained Khalil, a outstanding determine within the pro-Palestinian protests that rocked Columbia’s New York Metropolis campus final yr, and despatched him to Louisiana in an try to take away him from the nation.
The case has drawn consideration as a take a look at of free speech rights, with supporters of Khalil saying he was focused for publicly disagreeing with U.S. coverage on Israel and its occupation of Gaza. Khalil has known as himself a political prisoner.
The U.S. alleges Khalil’s presence or actions within the nation would have critical international coverage penalties.
A choose has ordered Khalil not be deported whereas his lawsuit difficult his detention, referred to as a habeas petition, is heard in one other federal courtroom.
Khalil, a local of Syria and citizen of Algeria, entered the U.S. on a pupil visa in 2022 and later filed to turn into a everlasting resident in 2024.
In a courtroom transient dated Sunday, the U.S. authorities outlined its arguments for conserving Khalil in custody whereas his elimination proceedings proceed, arguing first that the U.S. District Court docket in New Jersey, the place the habeas case is being heard, lacks jurisdiction.
The transient additionally says Khalil “withheld membership in sure organizations” which needs to be grounds for his deportation.
It references a March 17 doc in his deportation case that knowledgeable Khalil he could possibly be eliminated as a result of he did not disclose that he was a political officer of UNRWA in 2023.
A UNRWA spokesperson stated Khalil was by no means on the payroll of the company throughout his quick internship and that the group doesn’t have in its job descriptions the put up of political affairs officer.
The U.N. stated in August an investigation discovered 9 of the company’s 32,000 employees members might have been concerned within the October 7 assaults.
The U.S. courtroom discover additionally accuses Khalil of leaving off his visa software that he labored for the Syria workplace within the British embassy in Beirut and that he was a member of the group Columbia College Apartheid Divest.
Attorneys for Khalil didn’t reply to a request for remark.
One lawyer, Ramie Kassem, a co-director of the authorized clinic CLEAR, was quoted within the New York Occasions as saying the brand new deportation grounds had been “patently weak and pretextual.”
“That the federal government scrambled so as to add them on the eleventh hour solely highlights how its motivation from the beginning was to retaliate towards Mr. Khalil for his protected speech in help of Palestinian rights and lives,” Kassem stated, based on the Occasions.
