WASHINGTON – The arrest of a Palestinian activist who helped arrange campus protests of the war in Gaza has sparked questions on whether or not international college students and inexperienced card holders are protected in opposition to being deported from the U.S.
Mahmoud Khalil was arrested Saturday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers. Homeland Safety officers and President Donald Trump have indicated that the arrest was immediately tied to his position within the protests final spring at Columbia College in New York Metropolis.
Khalil is being held at an immigration detention heart in Jena, Louisiana, whereas he awaits immigration courtroom proceedings that might ultimately result in him being deported. His arrest has drawn criticism that he is being unfairly and unlawfully focused for his activism whereas the federal authorities has primarily described him as a terrorist sympathizer.
A take a look at what sort of protections international college students and inexperienced card holders have and what is likely to be subsequent for Khalil:
Can somebody with a inexperienced card be deported?
A inexperienced card holder is somebody who has lawful everlasting residence standing in the USA.
Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer is a regulation professor at Cornell Regulation College who teaches immigration regulation. She stated lawful everlasting residents typically have many protections and “ought to be essentially the most protected wanting a US citizen.”
However that safety is not absolute. Inexperienced card holders can nonetheless be deported for committing sure crimes, failing to inform immigration officers of a change in tackle or participating in marriage fraud, for instance.
The Division of Homeland Safety stated Khalil was taken into custody because of Trump’s government orders prohibiting antisemitism.
Trump has argued that protesters forfeited their rights to stay within the nation by supporting the Palestinian group Hamas, which controls Gaza and has been designated as a terrorist group.
Khalil and different pupil leaders of Columbia College Apartheid Divest have rejected claims of antisemitism, saying they’re a part of a broader anti-war motion that additionally contains Jewish college students and teams. However the protest coalition, at instances, has additionally voiced support for leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, one other Islamist group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group.
Consultants say that officers appear to point with their rhetoric that they’re attempting to deport Khalil on the grounds that he is participating in some form of terrorist exercise or in some way poses a menace.
Khalil has not been convicted of any terrorist-related exercise. The truth is, he has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
However consultants say the federal authorities has pretty broad authority to arrest and attempt to deport a inexperienced card holder on terrorism grounds.
Underneath the Immigration and Nationality Act, inexperienced card holders don’t must be convicted of one thing to be “detachable,” Kelley-Widmer stated. They could possibly be deported if the secretary of homeland safety or the legal professional common have cheap grounds to consider they engaged in, or are more likely to interact in, terrorist actions, she stated.
However Kelley-Widmer stated she’s by no means seen a case the place the alleged terrorist exercise occurred within the U.S., and she or he questioned whether or not collaborating in protests as Khalil did qualifies.
What did ICE say about why they had been arresting him?
One of many key points in Khalil’s case is what ICE brokers stated to his lawyer on the time he was arrested.
His lawyer, Amy Greer, stated the brokers who took him into custody at his university-owned residence close to Columbia initially claimed to be performing on a State Division order to revoke his pupil visa.
However when Greer knowledgeable them that Khalil was a everlasting resident with a inexperienced card, they stated they might revoke that documentation as a substitute.
Kelley-Widmer stated that change raises questions on how acquainted the brokers who arrested him had been with the regulation or whether or not there was a “actual disregard for the rule of regulation.”
“I believe we ought to be actually involved that that is taking place,” she stated.
What are the following steps in his case?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in a message posted Sunday on X that the administration might be “revoking the visas and/or inexperienced playing cards of Hamas supporters in America to allow them to be deported.”
If somebody is within the nation on a pupil visa, the State Division does have authority to revoke it if the particular person violates sure situations. For instance, stated Florida immigration legal professional John Gihon, it is fairly widespread for the State Division to cancel visas of international college students who get arrested for drunk driving.
However in terms of somebody who’s a lawful everlasting resident, that typically requires an immigration decide to find out whether or not they are often deported.
Gihon stated the following step is that Khalil would obtain charging paperwork explaining why he is being detained and why the federal government needs to take away him, in addition to a discover to seem in immigration courtroom.
Usually, he ought to obtain these inside 72 hours of being arrested, after which he would make an preliminary look earlier than an immigration decide. That would take from 10 days to a month, Gihon stated.
However he cautioned that proper now he is seeing extensive delays across the immigration courtroom system, with purchasers typically moved across the nation to completely different amenities.
“We’re having people who find themselves detained after which they’re bounced round to a number of completely different detention amenities. After which generally they’re transferred throughout the nation,” he stated.
Copyright 2025 The Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.
