Anti-Israel student activist, Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested and detained by immigration officials this month, is now being accused by the government of lying on his green card application about his employment history. 

The government, in a legal brief filed on Sunday, claimed that Mr. Khalil failed to disclose his membership at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a UN group which has been accused of aiding Hamas and employing people who participated in the October 7 massacre. He also withheld his previous employment at the Syria office of the British Embassy at Beirut as well as his work with the anti-Israel student group at Columbia, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the government alleges. 

“Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations and failed to disclose continuing employment by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut when he submitted his adjustment of status application” the government wrote. They charged Mr. Khalil with seeking to “procure an immigration benefit by fraud of willful misrepresentation of a material fact.” 

Mr. Khalil, who was born in Syria but holds citizenship in Algeria, was arrested on March 8 after the State Department 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, during his schooling, served as one of the ringleaders of the anti-Israel student encampment movement that has roiled Columbia since October 7, 2023. 

The anti-Israel group that Mr. Khalil was closely affiliated with, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, has been behind some of the most virulent anti-Israel campus protests in the country and shares what can only be described as pro-terror, anti-West content on its well-followed Instagram account. Not only does the student group advocate for violent resistance against Zionism, but it has also professed its goal of “fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.” Mr. Khalil most recently participated in a protest at Barnard College during which students illegally occupied a campus library and handed out pamphlets authored by the “Hamas Media Office.” 

The student activist’s arrest has ignited a heated debate about free speech and immigrant rights. His lawyers claim that Mr. Khalil was targeted by the Trump administration for his pro-Palestinian advocacy, while the government has pointed to Mr. Khalil’s alleged support for American-designated terror groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Mr. Khalil recently penned a letter from the Louisiana detention center in which he called himself a “political prisoner.” 

Last week, a New York federal judge ordered the student activist to be transferred to New Jersey from Louisiana, against the wishes of the Department of Justice. In the Sunday filing, the government urged the Court to keep Mr. Khalil in custody while the removal proceedings were ongoing, claiming that the federal court in New Jersey that is set to hear his habeas corpus case lacks jurisdiction. 

Further, given the government’s new accusations regarding the defendant’s green card application, they claim that concerns over Mr. Khalil’s first amendment rights “are a red herring” and that there is “independent basis to justify removal sufficient to foreclose Khalil’s constitutional claim here.” They add: “It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech.” 

Under American immigration law, a non-citizen can be determined “inadmissible” — or no longer allowed to remain in the country — if they “willfully misrepresented a material fact.” However, one of Mr. Khalil’s attorneys, Ramie Kassem, told the New York Times that the new grounds for deportation were “patently weak and pretextual.” 

The UN agency that Mr. Khalil worked at while studying at Columbia, Unrwa, has been accused by Israeli officials, as well as non-governmental organizations, of holding close ties to Hamas. UN Watch published a 51-page dossier back in January supplying evidence of Unrwa officials “routinely” meeting with terrorist groups in Lebanon and Gaza where they “mutually praise each other for ‘cooperation,’ and describe each other as ‘partners.’” 

These illicit relationships, the report charged, have allowed terrorist organizations to “significantly influence the policies and practices” of the UN-backed agency that boasts 30,000 employees and receives $1.5 billion annually primarily from Western countries. UN Watch insists that the rot runs deep, with the report linking terrorist groups to Unrwa officials at both the international and local levels.

Mr. Khalil’s legal team is expected to file a response to the government’s new allegations by Tuesday afternoon.