Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student facing deportation because of his pro-Palestinian activism on campus, will appear in court on Friday.
A federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, will hear arguments on the government’s request to dismiss a petition without prejudice or move the case to Louisiana, where Khalil has been held in a detention center since his March 8 arrest.
Khalil filed a lawsuit, also known as a habeas petition, protesting his detention in New York. A New York judge previously ordered the case to continue in New Jersey because Khalil’s attorneys filed the petition while he was detained in New Jersey.
A rally is planned for Friday morning outside the courthouse.
The Trump administration has cited a provision within immigration law to justify Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting Khalil at his university-owned apartment in New York. The provision allows the secretary of state to deport noncitizens deemed a threat to U.S. foreign policy.
Following his arrest, Khalil was transported briefly to a facility in New Jersey and then taken to an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana. Khalil, a native of Syria, is a permanent resident with a green card, his attorney has said.
On Sunday, the Trump administration filed new allegations accusing Khalil of withholding information about his membership in certain organizations in his permanent residency application and failing to disclose his employment at the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
Khalil’s lawyers denied the allegations and said he was targeted for free speech for supporting the Palestinian cause after he helped organize rallies at the university last year.
In the last few weeks, other students have been detained by immigration agents. Georgetown University graduate student Badar Khan Suri was arrested last week by masked agents outside his Arlington, Virginia, home. Columbia student Leqaa Kordia was also detained, while Columbia student Ranjani Srinivasan allegedly fled to Canada after her student visa was revoked.
