Mahmoud Khalil can be expelled for his beliefs alone, US government argues | Trump administration

Facing a deadline from an immigration judge to turn over evidence for its attempted deportation of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, the federal government has instead submitted a brief memo, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, citing the Trump administration’s authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country damages US foreign policy interests.

The two-page memo, which was obtained by the Associated Press, does not allege any criminal conduct by Khalil, a legal permanent US resident and graduate student who served as spokesperson for campus activists last year during large demonstrations against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza.

Rather, Rubio wrote Khalil could be expelled for his beliefs.

He said that while Khalil’s activities were “otherwise lawful”, letting him remain in the country would undermine “US policy to combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”

“Condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio wrote in the undated memo.

The submission was filed on Wednesday after Judge Jamee Comans ordered the government to produce its evidence against Khalil ahead of a hearing Friday on whether it can continue detaining him during immigration proceedings.

Attorneys for Khalil said the memo proved the Trump administration was “targeting Mahmoud’s free speech rights about Palestine”.

“After a month of hiding the ball since Mahmoud’s late-night unjust arrest in New York and taking him away to a remote detention center in Louisiana, immigration authorities have finally admitted that they have no case whatsoever against him,” the attorneys, Marc Van Der Hout and Johnny Sinodis, said in a joint statement.

“There is not a single shred of proof that Mahmoud’s presence in America poses any threat,” they added.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, did not respond to questions about whether it had additional evidence against Khalil, writing in an emailed statement: “DHS did file evidence, but immigration court dockets are not available to the public.”

Khalil, 30, was arrested on 8 March in New York and taken to a detention center in Louisiana. He is a Palestinian by ethnicity who was born in Syria. Khalil recently finished his coursework for a master’s degree at Columbia’s school of international affairs. He is married to an American citizen who is due to give birth this month.

Khalil has adamantly rejected allegations of antisemitism, accusing the Trump administration in a letter sent from jail last month of “targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent”.

“Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances,” he added, “I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.”

Though Rubio’s memo references additional documents, including a “subject profile of Mahmoud Khalil” and letter from the Department Homeland Security, the government did not submit those documents to the immigration court, according to Khalil’s lawyers.

The memo also calls for the deportation of a second lawful permanent resident, whose name was redacted in the filing.

The Trump administration has pulled billions of dollars in government funding from universities and their affiliated hospital systems in recent weeks as part of what it says is a campaign against antisemitism on college campuses, but which critics say is a crackdown on free speech. To get the money back, the administration has been telling universities to punish protesters and make other changes.

The US government has also been revoking the visas of international students who criticized Israel or accused it of mistreating Palestinians.

At the time of Khalil’s arrest, McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, accused the activist of leading activities “aligned to Hamas”, referring to the militant group that attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.

But the government has not produced any evidence linking Khalil to Hamas, and made no reference to the group in their most recent filing.