Trump administration says it intends to deport Mahmoud Khalil, alleging ‘serious’ foreign policy consequences

The Trump administration has filed a document seeking to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who played a major role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, saying he is “subject to removal from the United States” in documents obtained by NBC News.

Federal immigration agents arrested Khalil, 30, in New York City on Saturday and briefly took him to a detention center in New Jersey before he was transferred to the facility in Jena, Louisiana. He is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, married to a U.S. citizen and a legal permanent resident of the United States.

In the document, the Department of Homeland Security cited a provision in immigration law that gives the secretary of state the authority to deport someone if it is determined that the person “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

“The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,” it continued.

The agency issued Khalil a notice to appear before an immigration judge for deportation proceedings, with a hearing set for March 27 at the detention center in Louisiana where he is being held, according to the document obtained by NBC News. DHS said Khalil “refused to sign” the document, which was dated as having been served to him Sunday, the day after he was arrested.

Deportation proceedings for a person with a green card are handled in the immigration court system, in which an immigration judge would ultimately decide whether someone can be deported.

A federal judge temporarily blocked Khalil from being deported Monday, saying he will remain in the United States as the court weighs the challenge to his arrest and detention. That case is separate from the proceeding Khalil will face in immigration court to determine whether he should be deported and his green card should be taken away, as ordered by DHS.

Immigration law experts say the immigration court system favors the government, although green card holders have certain rights, such as the right to lawyers and the right to hearings before immigration judges.

NBC News obtained the document Wednesday, hours after a federal judge in New York heard arguments in the arrest and detention of Khalil.

His lawyers want him to be released from the Louisiana detention center and returned to New York for his immigration proceedings. Meanwhile, the Trump administration argued that the case should be moved to New Jersey or Louisiana.

U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman did not immediately make a decision Wednesday and asked lawyers for both parties to submit a joint letter Friday that will detail further plans for arguments in the detention case.

Attorney Ramzi Kassem argued in court that Khalil “was targeted for his advocacy for Palestinian rights.” In addition to having Khalil be “1,000 miles away in Louisiana,” any communication with him thus far has been monitored by the government. “It impedes our ability to defend him,” Kassem said.

In response, Furman said Khalil and his attorneys are entitled to one privileged call Wednesday and another Thursday, meaning he will remain detained in Louisiana for now.

Kassem said Khalil’s legal team plans to quickly file an amended petition with the court later this week, given the “grave constitutional consequences.” He added that Khalil has no criminal convictions.

What happened to Mahmoud Khalil is nothing short of extraordinary and shocking and outrageous,” Kassem said at a news conference after the hearing. “Every day that Mahmoud spends in detention in Louisiana is a day too long.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Waterman, who is representing the government, argued that New York is not the proper forum for the petition and that it should be moved to New Jersey or Louisiana, instead.

As it relates to jurisdiction, Waterman said that “there could be arguments for either New Jersey or Louisiana” but that the Southern District of New York “is not proper and it should be moved to a different venue.”

In a statement Tuesday night, Khalil’s wife, who is a U.S. citizen and eight months pregnant, said, “Mahmoud has been ripped away from me for no reason at all.”

She said the couple had returned from an Iftar dinner when they were followed and confronted by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement at their Columbia University housing. Iftar is a meal that breaks fasting during Muslims’ Ramadan holy month observations.

ICE agents told her and his attorney, who was on the phone, that they had a warrant to revoke Khalil’s student visa, according to court documents. When the attorney told the agents that he has a green card, they replied that they were there to revoke his green card, his attorneys said.

We were not shown any warrant and the ICE officers hung up the phone on our lawyer,” said Khalil’s wife, who was not named in court documents.

“Within minutes, they had handcuffed Mahmoud, took him out into the street and forced him into an unmarked car,” she said in the statement. “Watching this play out in front of me was traumatizing: It felt like a scene from a movie I never signed up to watch.”

DHS said in a statement about Khalil’s arrest that he had “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged that Khalil “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, fliers with the logo of Hamas.”

Leavitt said she had the fliers on her desk. “I thought about bringing them into this briefing room to share with all of you, but I didn’t think it was worth the dignity of this room to bring that pro-Hamas propaganda,” she said.

Trump and his administration have not provided evidence of the allegations.

A lawyer for Khalil, Samah Sisay, rejected the Trump administration’s claim, saying there is no evidence that Khalil provided support of any kind to a terrorist organization.

Khalil’s legal team has also said that his arrest was a violation of his free speech rights and that he was targeted because of his viewpoints.

He was chosen as an example to stifle entirely lawful dissent in violation of the First Amendment,” attorney Amy Greer said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday morning before the hearing that Khalil’s case was not about free speech. “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with,” he said.

Adam Cox, a law professor and immigration expert at New York University, said the provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act the administration cited for Khalil’s deportation case has been used only in rare circumstances.

If the administration began to use that in a widespread way to arrest folks and argue that they’re deportable, that would be an enormous change from historical practice,” he said.

At least two dozen demonstrators protesting Khalil’s arrest assembled outside the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan after Wednesday’s hearing as at least 18 police officers stood on the other side of the street watching them.

The arrest of Khalil “does not make Jewish people any safer,” Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss said at the demonstration. Weiss, who identifies as an anti-Zionist Jew and opposes the Israeli government, said he believes the Trump administration must “stop vilifying students who are standing up for what they believe is right.”