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Anti-Israel activist and former Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil is set to be deported to Algeria — bringing an end to a drawn-out court battle over his immigration status, federal officials said.
The Syrian-born activist, who was arrested by ICE early last year, is slated to be booted from the US after the Trump administration accused him of committing fraud on his green card application.
“It looks like he’ll go to Algeria. That’s what the thought is right now,” Homeland Security assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, told NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight” Wednesday.
“It’s a reminder for those who are in this country on a visa or on a green card. You are a guest in this country — act like it,” she added.
“It is a privilege, not a right, to be in this country to live or to study.”
The Trump administration has been battling to deport the 31-year-old ever since he became one of the first to be rounded up during the government’s crackdown on anti-Israel campus protests.
Khalil, who the government claims is a Hamas supporter, spent three months in a Louisiana immigration jail — missing the birth of his first child.
The feds justified his arrest under a rarely-used statute that allows for noncitizens to be kicked out if their beliefs are deemed to pose a threat to US foreign policy interests.
In June, a federal judge in New Jersey ordered Khalil be cut loose after ruling the justification would likely be declared unconstitutional.
The White House scored a major win last week when a federal appeals court overturned the ruling ordering his release from the ICE facility.
The three-judge panel found his case should have been allowed to work its way through the immigration court system before Khalil could mount a legal challenge.
Immediately after the ruling, McLaughlin urged Khalil to “self-deport now before he is arrested, deported, and never given a chance to return.”
It wasn’t immediately clear when the feds would attempt to detain Khalil.
Khalil, who has dismissed the allegations against him as “baseless and ridiculous,” insists the saga is a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
English (US)