A federal judge has intervened to at least temporarily block the Trump administration from deporting an anti-Israel extremist who led pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University.
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was taken into custody by ICE over the weekend and faced being kicked out of the country as President Donald J. Trump moves to crack down on the scourge of anti-Semitism on the nation’s college campuses, igniting howls of protest from leftists and drawing support from Democrat members of Congress.
On Monday, Manhattan Judge Jesse Furman ruled that Khalil is not to be deported “unless and until the Court orders otherwise,” with the Obama appointee setting a Wednesday hearing on the matter.
(Video Credit: NBC New York)
The 30-year-old graduate student has been a ringleader of the protests at the New York City-based Ivy League institution and is being held at the Lasalle Detention Facility in Louisiana. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
The Jew-hating firebrand was arrested at the university despite holding a green card. A White House source said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “presented with intelligence” that Khalil was a threat to national security, according to the New York Post.
The terrorist supporter’s attorney, Amy Greer, said that he is “healthy, and his spirits are undaunted by his predicament” in a Monday statement.
“The remarks by government officials, including the President, on social media only confirm the purpose – and illegality – of Mahmoud’s detention. He was chosen as an example to stifle entirely lawful dissent in violation of the First Amendment. While tomorrow or thereafter the government may cite the law or process, that toothpaste is out of the tube and irreversibly so. The government’s objective is as transparent as it is unlawful, and our role as Mahmoud’s lawyers is to ensure it does not prevail,” the statement read.
Democrats are treating Khalil like a heroic martyr with Palestinian bomb thrower Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) taking to Instagram to proclaim that it is “dangerous to allow our government to target people based on political speech,” a flaming arrow of hypocrisy considering that conservatives and Trump supporters were targeted for their political speech for four years during the Biden regime, and not a peep from the “Squad” member.
“Everyone should be concerned about this,” Tlaib said in her video.
“Free Mahmoud Khalil,” the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats demanded in a post to X.
“Mahmoud Khalil is a legal permanent resident whose wife, an American citizen, is eight months pregnant,” Jefferies said. “To the extent his actions were inconsistent with Columbia University policy and created an unacceptable hostile academic environment for Jewish students and others, there is a serious university disciplinary process that can handle the matter,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a statement.
Trump said that the arrest of Khalil was “the first arrest of many to come” in a post to Truth Social. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”
“Many are not students; they are paid agitators,” the president added. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
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