Immigration judge rules Khalil can be deported, but legal hurdles remain

An immigration judge in Louisiana found Friday that the Trump administration could deport Mahmoud Khalil, granting the government an early victory in its efforts to crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on U.S. college campuses.

The ruling is far from the final word on whether Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident, will be deported. His lawyers will continue their fight in Louisiana and New Jersey, arguing that he has been targeted for constitutionally protected speech.

The constitutional issues at the heart of the case will most likely get a fuller hearing in federal court in New Jersey than they did in Louisiana on Friday. For the time being, the decision by the judge there, Jamee E. Comans, affirmed the extraordinary power that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted to target any noncitizen for deportation.

“The department has met its burden to establish removability by clear and convincing evidence,” Comans said toward the end of a hearing at an immigration court in Jena, La.

In Khalil’s case, Rubio relied on a rarely cited law, declaring that the Columbia graduate’s presence in the United States harmed the American foreign policy interest of stopping antisemitism.

Comans found that the government had met the burden of evidence that the law requires, which effectively amounted to a memo from Rubio declaring that Khalil’s presence in the country enabled antisemitism. The Homeland Security Department appears not to have submitted any other concrete evidence substantiating the claim, although it has not publicly released the documents it has filed in his case.

After Comans delivered her ruling, Khalil, who was otherwise silent throughout the hearing, criticized her harshly.

“I would like to quote what you said last time, that there’s nothing that’s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness,” he said. “Clearly, what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process. This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family.”

Immigration judges are employees of the executive branch, not the judiciary, and often approve the Homeland Security Department’s deportation efforts. It would be unusual for such a judge, serving the U.S. attorney general, to grapple with the constitutional questions raised by Khalil’s case. She would also run the risk of being fired by an administration that has targeted dissenters.

“This court is without jurisdiction to entertain challenges to the validity of this law under the Constitution,” Comans said as she delivered her ruling, apparently reading from a written statement.

She denied Khalil’s lawyers’ requests that they be allowed to cross-examine or depose Rubio so that he could elaborate on his claims. “This court is neither inclined or authorized” to compel such testimony, she said.

Comans’ decision came at the end of a remarkable, nearly two-hour hearing at the LaSalle Immigration Court in Jena. Khalil was there in person, wearing a navy jumpsuit and holding a string of prayer beads.

Most of the time was taken up by Khalil’s lawyers, who mounted arguments, both broad and technical, against Rubio’s memo and other claims the Trump administration has made about Khalil related to his immigration paperwork.

Khalil’s lawyers noted that he has said in remarks on CNN that “antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement,” and that Jewish demonstrators were “an integral part of this movement.”

Comans was mostly calm during the hearing. She focused primarily on keeping the parties from interrupting each other while asserting that she was interested in considering only one issue: whether Khalil could be removed from the United States under the law.

“I’m going to hear from the parties on removability and that’s it,” she said.

She declined to allow Khalil’s lawyers to address their other requests, including to delay the hearing so that she could review the evidence. She also would not allow the Homeland Security Department to introduce new accusations against Khalil during the hearing.

Homeland security officials have accused Khalil of making paperwork errors that they say bolster the case for deporting him. They say he willfully failed to disclose the extent or duration of his membership in several organizations, including a United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees, when he applied to become a permanent U.S. resident last March.

Khalil’s lawyers spent much of their time Friday poking holes in those arguments, and Comans declined to rule on the additional allegations.

When Comans issued her ruling, Khalil’s supporters in the room, including members of the New York City chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace, began to cry. Khalil rolled his prayer beads in his hands.

“Don’t worry,” he told his supporters, thanking them for being there.

Marc Van Der Hout, a lawyer for Khalil, said in a statement after the hearing that “this is not over, and our fight continues. If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes.”

Khalil’s immigration case now moves on to what is known as the “relief stage,” in which his lawyers will be able to argue for his right to stay in the country. If they lose, they can appeal, first to an immigration board and then to a federal court.

But the free speech and due process issues that loom over the case may first be scrutinized in federal court in New Jersey, where Khalil’s lawyers are also fighting for his release. The judge overseeing that case in Newark, Michael Farbiarz, has ordered the government not to remove Khalil from the country.

On Friday, Farbiarz asked lawyers for the government and Khalil to brief him as soon as possible on the results of the Louisiana hearing.