JENA, La. (AP) — An immigration judge in Louisiana said she will decide later this week whether the government can continue to detain Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University activist facing deportation for his role in pro-Palestinian campus protests.
At a hearing Tuesday in Louisiana, Judge Jamee Comans gave the federal government until Wednesday to turn over its evidence gathered against Khalil, a 30-year-old legal U.S. resident who has been held in a remote detention facility in Louisiana for the last month.
“I’d like to see the evidence,” Comans said. If the government cannot produce justification for removing Khalil, she added, “then I am going to terminate the case on Friday.”
Appearing by video conference, Khalil’s California-based attorney, Marc Van Der Hout, told the judge he had “not received a single document” in response to his request for “evidence and assertions” in the case. “We cannot plead until we know what the specific allegations are,” Van Der Hout said.
Khalil, who wore a navy blue T-shirt over a beige sweatshirt, spoke only briefly to ask that the judge permit his wife to follow the proceeding virtually. The judge obliged, noting that more than 600 people had requested access to the hearing through a virtual lobby. “This is highly unusual,” Comans said.
On March 8, Khalil became the first in a growing number of foreign-born students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration for participating in campus protests against Israel and the war in Gaza.
After being taken into custody by federal immigration authorities inside the lobby of his Manhattan apartment, Khalil was flown overnight to an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana, thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife, a U.S. citizen who is due to give birth this month.
As Khalil’s immigration case plays out in Louisiana, his attorneys have also challenged his detention and potential deportation before a federal judge in New Jersey. That judge last week rejected the Trump administration’s effort to transfer jurisdiction of the legal battle to Louisiana, but has yet to rule on the petition for his release.
The federal government has sought to deport Khalil and other students under a rarely-used statute that authorizes the Secretary of State to expel noncitizens who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
They have alleged, without providing evidence, that Khalil’s prominent role in anti-Israel protests amounted to support for Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza and attacked Israel in October 2023.
Khalil served as a negotiator for student protesters at Columbia, but was not among those arrested and has not been accused of any crime. He has repeatedly denied claims of antisemitism.
In a letter dictated from jail last month, Khalil said his detention was a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
