Can US deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder?

Mahmoud Khalil, a key figure during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, will remain detained in Louisiana amid the Trump administration’s plans to deport him. On Wednesday (March 12), lawyers argued whether the 30-year-old should be moved back to New York.

Khalil was arrested from his university residence in New York’s upper Manhattan over the weekend by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. His arrest has raised concerns about free speech on college campuses in the US and whether a green card holder can be deported.

Let’s take a closer look.

Who is Mahmoud Khalil?

Mahmoud Khalil played a big role in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University last spring.

Born in Syria to Palestinian refugees, Khalil earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science at Lebanese American University.

He previously worked at the British Embassy in Lebanon from 2018 to 2022, reported Middle East Eye. Khalil managed the Syria Chevening Programme for the British Embassy in Beirut, offering scholarships for study in the United Kingdom.

He moved to the United States on a student visa in 2022, joining Columbia University early next year.

Khalil graduated in December with a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Last year, several US college campuses, including Columbia University, were embroiled in pro-Palestinian protests and encampments against Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. Khalil was thrown into the spotlight as he emerged as a lead negotiator for student demonstrators during talks with Columbia University’s administration.

While he maintains he only acted as a spokesperson and mediator for the Columbia student protesters, activists supporting Israel claim he was a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD). The student group called for the varsity located in New York City to divest from Israel and demanded a ceasefire in Gaza.

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Khalil has denied the allegations. “As a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other,” he told CNN last spring. “Our movement is a movement for social justice and freedom and equality for everyone,” Khalil said.

He got his US permanent residency — green card — last year.

Khalil is married to a US citizen who is in her eighth month of pregnancy. Speaking to Reuters in an interview, Noor Abdalla described her husband of two years as the “most incredible person who cares so much for other people”. She added, “He is the most kind, genuine soul.”

Those who know Khalil agree. “Mahmoud is an extremely kind and conscientious person and he was loved by his colleagues at the Syria office,” the former British diplomat Andrew Waller, who worked as a policy adviser at the time, told Middle East Eye.

Case against Mahmoud Khalil

Khalil was arrested by US immigration authorities on Saturday night from his university-owned apartment.

Before his arrest, he told Reuters he was concerned about being targeted by the US government for speaking to the press. “Clearly, Trump is using the protesters as a scapegoat for his wider agenda [of] fighting and attacking higher education and the Ivy League education system,” Khalil said.

The Palestinian activist was briefly taken to a detention centre in New Jersey before being transferred to the facility in Jena, Louisiana.

No federal charges have been pressed against Khalil yet.

“This is the first arrest of many to come,” President Donald Trump wrote on Monday on his Truth Social platform, describing Khalil as “a radical foreign pro-Hamas student”.

“If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here,” he said.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Khalil of organising “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, flyers with the logo of Hamas.”

Khalil’s lawyer Amy Greer told the Time magazine that her client was being targeted for his political activism and opposing Israel’s policies.

His lawyers have accused the government of “open repression of student activism and political speech”. They say there was no proof that he provided support to any US-designated terror groups.

On Monday, New York federal Judge Jesse Furman blocked any effort to deport Khalil immediately. The student activist’s lawyers have urged the court to bring him back to New York and release him under supervision.

For now, Khalil will remain in Louisiana. But the court at a brief hearing Wednesday allowed his lawyers to have privileged phone calls with their client at least twice – on Wednesday and Thursday.

As per CNN, Department of Justice attorneys told the court they will try to move the proceedings out of New York to New Jersey.

Protests broke out in Manhattan against Khalil’s arrest on Monday, with students and professors of Columbia University taking to the streets. His supporters also marched across the street from the courthouse Wednesday, demanding his release.

Can Mahmoud Khalil be deported?

Yes. Legal experts say he could be deported despite having a US green card.

Legal experts told Al Jazeera that green card holders can be deported and their status revoked for certain conditions including committing crimes, engaging in fraud, or being deemed a national security threat.

The Immigration and Nationality Act allows the US State Department to deport noncitizens who are “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of America, as per BBC.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the US could deport visa and green card holders for “virtually any reason”.

But legal experts point out that the case against Khalil is unprecedented.

“Targeting individual protesters just for protesting … is highly unusual and something that we haven’t seen before, even under the first Trump administration,” Jacob Hamburger, a visiting assistant professor at Cornell Law School, told BBC.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said that political speech is not a valid reason to revoke Khalil’s permanent residency.

“Green card holders are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as US citizens,” she said. Whitson said his arrest is a “clear effort to silence all speech in support of Palestinian rights”.

The American Civil Liberties Union has called Khalil’s arrest “unprecedented” and “obviously intended to intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate”.

“The federal government is claiming the authority to deport people with deep ties to the US and revoke their green cards for advocating positions that the government opposes,” it said.

With inputs from agencies