An immigration judge from the United States decided on Friday that the US government can proceed with the process of deportation against the postgraduate student at Columbia University and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested in New York City last month.
Judge Jamee Comans of the Louisiana Immigration Court of the Immigration Court said he had no authority to annul a decision regarding Khalil made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month under a law of 1952 called Immigration and Nationality Law.
Rubio determined that Khalil should be deported because his presence in the United States has “potentially serious adverse consequences for foreign policy.”
The judge’s decision is not the final word about if Khalil will be deported.
In a case separated in a New Jersey Federal Court, US district judge Michael Farbiarz while considering Khalil’s allegation that his arrest on March 8 was made in violation of the protections of the first amendment of the US Constitution to freedom of expression.
Khalil, with a pro-passage student protest that shook the Columbia campus in New York, was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, has Algerian citizenship and became a permanent legal resident in the US last year. Khalil’s wife is an American citizen.
The government has stated that Khalil and other international students participating in pro-Palestinian protests are damaging the interests of US foreign policy, citing a provision of the immigration and nationality law granting the Secretary of State wide authority to determine when a foreigner may be deported.
Comans stated that Congress, in this law, granted the Secretary of State “unilateral judgment” to make such a decision.
The judge’s decision was made after a 90 -minute hearing held at a court located within a prison complex for immigrants in the Louisiana countryside.
Khalil, 30, called himself a political prisoner. He was arrested at his building at Columbia University and transferred to the Louisiana jail.
His lawyers said the Trump administration was chasing him by speech protected by the first amendment, including the right to criticize American foreign policy.
“Mahmoud was subjected to a scrutiny of due process, a blatant violation of his right to just judgment and an instrumentalization of the immigration law to suppress the dissent,” said his lawyer, Marc Van der Hist, in a statement after the hearing. “This is not over, and our fight continues,” he added.
The American Immigration Judiciary System is administered and its judges are appointed by the US Department of Justice, separately from the government’s judiciary.
The Trump government presented a two -page letter from Rubio as proof that Khalil should be deported. Rubio wrote that Khalil should be removed by his role in “anti -Semitic protests and disturbing activities that foster a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
Rubio’s letter does not accuse Khalil of violating any law, but states that the state department can revoke the legal status of immigrants even when their beliefs, associations, or statements are “otherwise legal.”
Khalil stated that criticism of US government support for Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories are being mistakenly confused with anti -Semitism.
A state department spokesman said the department does not comment on lawsuits in progress.
In the case presented to Farbiarz, Khalil disputes what he said was his arrest, detention and illegal transfer to Louisiana’s arrest, about 1.930 km of his family and lawyers in New York City.
