Federal Government Responds to Mahmoud Khalil’s Latest Release Effort

The federal government is seeking to thwart detained activist Mahmoud Khalil’s latest release effort by arguing that the embattled anti-Israel advocate “failed to challenge” the government’s charge that he withheld information on his green card application. The letter, which the government filed on Tuesday, responds to Mr. Khalil’s recent motion to be released or transferred from the detention center in Louisiana where he has been held in since March. Mr. Khalil, who was born in Syria but holds citizenship in Algeria, was arrested by immigration officers in March after the Department of State revoked his visa and green card over his alleged support for Hamas. The 30-year-old graduated in December with a master’s degree from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and served as one of the ringleaders of the anti-Israel student encampment movement that has roiled Columbia since October 7, 2023. The state department initially justified the administration’s deportation of Mr. Khalil by calling up a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the government to deport non-citizens who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” The government later also argued that Mr. Khalil committed immigration fraud by lying on his green card application about his employment history, namely his involvement in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a UN group accused of aiding Hamas and employing people who participated in the October 7 massacre. The administration also accused Mr. Khalil of withholding his previous employment at the Syria office of the British Embassy at Beirut, as well as his work with an anti-Israel student group at Columbia, Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Mr. Khalil’s lawyers petitioned for their client’s release on Monday after a federal judge ruled last week that the government could not continue to hold Mr. Khalil on the basis of the foreign policy law. However, given the government’s secondary claim that Mr. Khalil failed to disclose key work history information in his green card application, the judge, Michael Farbiarz, had declined to grant Mr. Khalil’s release. Mr. Khalil’s attorneys, in their recent motion, argued that the government’s rationale for detaining him on that secondary basis was “exceedingly rare and extremely unusual.” They also urged the judge to transfer Mr. Khalil to a detention facility in New Jersey — so that he could be closer to his wife and son — if the release request is not granted. However, the government, in its Tuesday filing, chided Mr. Khalil’s legal team for seeking “to rehash the arguments in his motion that this Court already denied” without providing any “basis for this Court to reconsider its prior order.” The government added, “Substantively, Khalil does not make out his case for release.” The government also argued against Mr. Khalil’s transfer to New Jersey, citing jurisdictional grounds and adding that the facility is over capacity, with 355 inmates and only 304 beds. The government’s latest filing builds on its effort to shift its deportation case against Mr. Khalil to its secondary justification — that Mr. Khalil can be deported for allegedly lying on his green card application about his employment history. Mr. Khalil’s lawyers, who have denied the government’s claims about their client’s green card application, will have until Wednesday to respond to the government’s filing.

Federal Government Responds to Mahmoud Khalil’s Latest Release Effort

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