Mahmoud Khalil, the accused ringleader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia College, denied all allegations introduced towards him throughout a courtroom listening to on Tuesday as the Trump administration strikes to deport the outspoken anti-Israel agitator.
On Tuesday, Khalil met on the LaSalle Immigration Court docket in Jena, Louisiana, together with his staff of attorneys as the federal government pursues his deportation resulting from his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia College final yr. He’s at the moment detained on the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Middle, positioned 4 hours from New Orleans.
About 35 folks attended the listening to, together with his spouse, Noor Abdalla. Six wore pro-Palestinian scarves. Because it ended, Khalil nodded towards them.
The Division of Homeland Safety has till 6 p.m. Wednesday to submit proof supporting his removability forward of his subsequent listening to, which is scheduled for Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m.
PALESTINIAN PROTESTER MAHMOUD KHALIL EXCORIATES COLUMBIA IN OP-ED
Columbia College scholar Mahmoud Khalil talks to the press throughout a briefing organized by pro-Palestinian protesters who arrange an encampment at Columbia College’s Morningside Heights campus on Friday night, in New York Metropolis, United States on June 1, 2024. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu by way of Getty Photographs)
Khalil, a 30-year-old inexperienced card holder who’s married to a U.S. citizen, was detained by ICE final month for his involvement within the pro-Palestinian protests that erupted at Columbia.
A choose just lately dominated that his listening to will happen in New Jersey, fairly than the place he’s being held in Louisiana. Khalil’s lawyer alleged that federal prosecutors transferred the graduate’s case to a Louisiana courtroom, aiming to extend their probabilities of a positive ruling from judges there.
Baher Amzy, lawyer for Mahmoud Khalil, speaks to members of the media outdoors of the Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse in New York, US, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs)
The listening to got here on the heels of Khalil’s blistering op-ed printed within the faculty’s newspaper on Friday. The op-ed, titled merely “A letter to Columbia,” accused the establishment of “laying the groundwork for my abduction.”
He went on to check President Donald Trump’s crackdown on anti-Israel protesters to Columbia’s personal apathy towards Palestinians, itemizing different college students who’ve been “snatched by the state.”
VIDEO SHOWS ARREST OF COLUMBIA ANTI-ISRAEL RINGLEADER MAHMOUD KHALIL
“The situation is oddly reminiscent of when I fled the brutality of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and sought refuge in Lebanon,” Khalil wrote. “The logic used by the federal government to target myself and my peers is a direct extension of Columbia’s repression playbook concerning Palestine.”
WATCH: Mahmoud Khalil makes ‘preposterous’ accusation in op-ed
He went on to accuse Columbia directors of producing “public hysteria about antisemitism without once mentioning the tens of thousands of Palestinians murdered under bombs made of your dollars.”
The message got here weeks after ICE brokers detained Khalil in New York Metropolis in early March.
He’s the primary within the Trump administration’s campaign to revoke scholar visas for collaborating in protests. DHS alleged that he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
The anti-Israel protests wreaked havoc on faculty campuses following the Oct. 7, 2023 assaults, resulting in Trump’s marketing campaign promise to revoke foreigners’ scholar visas.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump is quoted in a truth sheet issued by the White Home. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
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Fox Information Digital has reached out to Khalil’s lawyer, Baher Amzy, for remark.
