Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University protest leader in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, can be deported.
Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans ruled on Friday that the Trump administration met its burden to support its order to remove Khalil, a Syrian national. Khalil's attorneys have until April 23 to file relief applications.
The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday submitted a two-page memorandum from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, invoking the Trump administration's authority to deport noncitizens whose presence in the country conflicts with the nation's foreign policy interests. Rubio noted that allowing Khalil to remain would jeopardize "U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States."
During a Thursday cabinet briefing at the White House, Rubio reiterated that "no one's entitled to a student visa."
The ruling sets a precedent for the Trump administration as it ramps up its crackdown of pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic visa-holders. On Wednesday, Citizenship and Immigration Services began surveilling "aliens' antisemitic activity on social media" to determine their admissibility into the country.
The news comes as Columbia struggles to rein in campus anti-Semitism, which has caused leadership instability and cost the university $430 million in federal funding. While Columbia acting president Claire Shipman has promised to "continue" implementing reforms in a bid to recover the slashed funding, the Trump administration is planning to pursue a legal arrangement that would legally bind the school to the changes, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Last spring, Khalil emerged as a prominent leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)—the Ivy League institution's most anti-Semitic student group, responsible for organizing illegal encampments that plagued campus for weeks. He led negotiations with the school as they unfolded, demanding divestment from Israel. Khalil pledged further unrest in the buildup to the fall semester, telling The Hill he would continue to push Columbia to divest from Israel by "any available means necessary." Video footage placed him at a more recent illegal building takeover at Barnard College that took place early last month.
CUAD has publicly endorsed Hamas's "armed resistance" and routinely engages in anarchism. The group disseminates Hamas propaganda, orchestrates building occupations, and has celebrated terrorist attacks targeting Israelis. CUAD also encourages its members to get involved with a designated terror financier and has hosted speakers on campus who have endorsed terrorism against Jews.
Last month, families of October 7 victims and hostages filed a lawsuit accusing Khalil and CUAD of serving as "Hamas' propaganda arm in New York City and on the Columbia University campus" and arguing that they should be held accountable "for aiding and abetting Hamas' continuing acts of international terrorism."
Khalil's pro-Hamas campus activism prompted the State Department to revoke his visa and green card on March 9. Two days later, Judge Jesse Furman paused Khalil's deportation proceedings as the federal court considered a petition challenging his arrest.
One of Khalil's attorneys, Ramzi Kassem, has defended al Qaeda terrorists, including Ahmed al-Darbi, who was convicted in 2017 for the bombing of a French oil tanker. Kassem also defended multiple Guantanamo Bay detainees, including a "close associate" of Osama bin Laden. He went on to serve as an immigration policy adviser to former president Joe Biden on the White House's Domestic Policy Council.
Khalil hid his work as a political affairs officer for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees when he applied for a green card. He worked for the terror-tied agency at the time of Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Concealing the job while applying for permanent residency last March further justifies his deportation, federal prosecutors argued three weeks ago. Khalil also omitted a position with the Syria office at the British embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.