US immigration appeals board decides Mahmoud Khalil can be deported
Former Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist Mahmoud Khalil is now a step closer to being deported from the US after the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issued a final removal order in his case on Thursday.
The judges who make up the BIA do not operate as an independent judiciary. The BIA falls under the control of the executive branch of government - in this case, the Trump administration.
The same applies to all immigration courts, which operate under the purview of the Department of Justice.
Khalil's lawyers maintain that the decision to remove him from the country is in direct retaliation for his pro-Palestine speech. They are going to appeal, they said in a statement.
Khalil has a separate, ongoing federal case regarding what his team said were violations of his constitutional rights, which means he cannot be rearrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or deported until that case is closed.
"The only thing keeping the government from accomplishing its unconstitutional goals is the intervention of a federal district court last summer," Brett Max Kaufman, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is among the parties representing Khalil, said in a statement.
"Without the protection of a habeas court, the government could do this to anyone, which is why today’s decision is an important reminder of the stakes of Mahmoud’s habeas case. We will continue to use all legal levers available to protect our client and defend the First Amendment against this cruel and relentless campaign," he added.
The term "habeas" stems from "habeas corpus" - a term that dates back to 13th-century England to prevent the king from disappearing people without due process. Today, it applies to everyone on US territory, citizen or not.
'I have broken no law'
Khalil, 31, is a legal permanent resident in the US - a status conferred upon Green Card holders.
It was a federal court that ultimately ordered Khalil's release last June, with judge Michael Farbiarz stating, "there is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish Mr Khalil... of course that would be unconstitutional".
But this year, Khalil seems to have faced a series of setbacks.
In January, the US Court of Appeals ruled that Farbiarz had no jurisdiction in the deportation case.
That decision opened the door to Khalil's rearrest while giving the Trump administration a boost in the highly fraught case that tests the limits of free speech, especially for international students and permanent legal residents.
Khalil remained defiant and said he is "not surprised" by the BIA decision.
"I have committed no crime. I have broken no law. The only thing I am guilty of is speaking out against the genocide in Palestine - and this administration has weaponized the immigration system to punish me for it," he said in a statement.
"My family is here. My life is here. I reject any attempt to intimidate me out of my home based on lies and ideological attacks. This is not justice. This is just another attempt to retaliate against me."
Crackdown
Khalil was a negotiator for pro-Palestinian student protesters in talks with Columbia University's administration during the 2024 Gaza solidarity encampment on campus, opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, where over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed.
ICE agents arrested him outside of his apartment on Columbia's campus on 8 March 2025, as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian students, given that the administration has equated their activism with antisemitism.
The plainclothes agents stated they had revoked Khalil's student visa. When his wife showed the agents that Mahmoud had a Green Card, not a visa, they said that it had been revoked as well.
Khalil was transferred to an immigration detention centre in central Louisiana without notice from his counsel or his wife, even though his habeas case was pending in New York as he was held in nearby New Jersey.
He was among the first of several people affiliated with prestigious universities who have been detained by ICE as part of the government's immigration crackdown.
He spent 104 days in ICE custody, missing the birth of his first child and his graduation ceremony at Columbia University.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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