Kamal Ghorui
Mahmoud Khalil loses deportation case.
Palestinian activist and Green Card holder Mahmoud Khalil lost his latest bid for the deportation case, making him a step closer to being thrown out of the country. The Board of Immigration Appeals issued a final order of removal for Khalil after the board ruled that his plea won’t be entertained. The rulings by the board were not made public but his lawyers shared the news and Khalil also reacted that he was not at all surprised. “I am not surprised by this decision from the biased and politically motivated Board of Immigration Appeals. I have committed no crime. I have broken no law. The only thing I am guilty of is speaking out against the genocide in Palestine — and this administration has weaponized the immigration system to punish me for it,” Khalil said.
Will Mahmoud Khalil be deported now?
His attorneys said he cannot be lawfully detained or deported as he is pursuing a separet case in the federal court system. “In all my decades as an immigration lawyer, I have never seen such a baseless and politically motivated decision. The BIA’s decision has absolutely no support in the record, violates a federal court order, and we’ll be fighting it until the end,” said Khalil’s lead immigration attorney, Marc Van Der Hout. “Federal courts have already agreed that Mahmoud was targeted for his speech, and there is likely much more evidence of the government’s unlawful retaliation that has yet to come to light. This is a clear continuation of the administration’s retaliation against Mahmoud for exercising his First Amendment rights.”
Who is Mahmoud Khalil ?
31-year-old Khalil, a Green Card holder, was arrested on March 8, 2025 from inside his Columbia University residential building in Manhattan. The agents approached him as he returned home and then detained him after he confirmed that he was Mahmoud Khalil. The arrest became a major flashpoint in Donald Trump’s second administration. The government claimed he was aligned with Hamas as he led pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia. Khalil spent 104 days in an immigration jail and missed the birth of his first child. He was ordered released by a federal judge in New Jersey and he was not charged. Khalil was born in Syria and holds Algerian citizenship through a distant relative.
