Judge rules Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported from US

An immigration judge has ruled on Friday that the University of Colombia University Mahmoud Halil may be deported from the US

The stunning move may have consequences on other international students who were directed by the administration.

The judge gave Khalil’s lawyers a deadline of April 23 to apply for relief to stop his deportation. The judge said that if they fail to make the deadline, she would file an order for removal in Syria or Algeria.

Judge Jamie Commons found Halil to be replaced according to the statement of Secretary of State Marco Rubio that his continuous presence and actions in the country were “adverse effects of foreign policy”.

The hearing came after the judge gave the government a deadline this week to present evidence to support several accusations he made against Halil as a reason to deport him from the United States, including that he was mistakenly presenting information about his green card request.

While a student at Columbia University, Khalil was part of a leadership group protested against the Gaza war. Khalil participates in the negotiations with school administrators requesting the institution to reduce the ties with Israel and to be released from Israeli companies. Halil graduated from his postgraduate training in Colombia in December and will be completed in the spring.

Halil – a green card holder and a legitimate permanent resident, married to an American citizen who is nine months pregnant – was arrested by immigration and customs application at his home in Colombia in March.

Thursday, the two -page evidence signed by Rubio, saying that he has found Khalil’s presence in the United States, “will compromise convincing interest in US foreign policy.”

Khalil’s attorneys claimed at a press conference on Thursday that the government – which entered the letter and other documents in evidence on Wednesday – did not provide evidence that the presence of Khalil in the United States was an unfavorable consequence of foreign policy.

The government claims that, according to a vague federal law of 1952, called the Law on Immigration and Nationality, that it believes that migrants are deportable “if the Secretary of State has a reasonable reason to believe that the presence or activities of aliens in the United States would have a potentially serious foreign policy.”

Halil’s lawyers say the determination is for a judge to do after the government presents evidence.

The note signed by Rubio also makes the case that another person whose name is edited must be deportable under the same law.

Rubio writes that Khalil must be deported because of his alleged role in “anti -Semitic protests and destructive activities that encourage a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”

Mark van der Hout, one of Khalil’s lawyers, sharply criticized the note during a press conference on Zoom on Thursday.

Rubio “talks about the activities of the first amendment in the United States and the effect on people in the United States his” determination “has absolutely nothing to do with foreign policy,” said Van der Hut.

Halil’s lawyers said the government did not provide evidence of the alleged misrepresented information that Halil made at his green card request.