Since the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, his attorneys have fought any suggestion that this case is about whether their client committed a crime or is a threat to national security. Instead, they say, it’s about the U.S. stifling Khalil’s advocacy for Palestine. The government agrees it’s not about committing a crime. The government’s main argument against Khalil rests on a civil law provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs the immigration and citizenship system. The provision gives the secretary of state the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a U.S. citizen, if there is a “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests, The Intercept reports.
Department of Homeland Security agents arrested Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian, in the lobby of his Columbia University apartment on Saturday. After initially alleging they had revoked his student visa, they said they had instead revoked Khalil’s green card. Authorities then transported Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident, from New York to New Jersey, then to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana where judges are known to be more favorable to the government’s legal arguments.
The government says, “The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” Government lawyers have not, however, provided any evidence, in court filings or hearings, to support their claim. Khalil’s legal team plans to fight the government’s “foreign policy” provision in both the push for his release in federal court and in his deportation proceedings in immigration court, said Baher Azmy of the Center for Constitutional Rights. A judge temporarily halted Khalil from being deported while his lawyers continue to push for his release and transfer back to New York, where his attorneys can represent him more easily and he can be closer to his wife, who is eight months pregnant. Khalil’s attorneys plan to contest his detention on free speech grounds under the First Amendment and by challenging the government’s use of the “foreign policy” provision. By evoking the “foreign policy” provision, the Trump administration is making a clear statement not just about its foreign policy goals but also free speech, Azmy said. “The United States government thinks Mahmoud’s speech in favor of Palestinian human rights and to end the genocide is not only contrary to U.S. foreign policy, which is something in itself, but that that dissent provides grounds for arrest, detention, and deportation,” Azmy said. “It’s an astonishing claim.”
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