NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan federal court will hear arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student that the Trump Administration is trying to deport over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests at the school.
Khalil’s lawyers are scheduled to hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. ET. Watch in the player above.
Immigration enforcement agents arrested Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident, in New York on Saturday and he has been moved to an immigration detention center in Louisiana.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman has ordered that the 30-year-old not be deported while the court considers the legal challenge brought by his lawyers, who are seeking to have Khalil returned to New York and released under supervision. They argue that he engaged in protected free speech and that the government is illegally retaliating against him over it.
A joint filing by Khalil’s lawyers and the government ahead of Wednesday’s hearing said the government intends to argue that the Southern District of New York is not the proper venue for the case.
Columbia University became the center of a U.S. pro-Palestinian protest movement that swept across college campuses nationwide last year and led to more than 2,000 arrests.
President Donald Trump heralded Khalil’s arrest as the first “of many to come,” vowing on social media to deport students he described as engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
During a stopover in Ireland while headed from Saudi Arabia to a meeting of the G7 foreign ministers in Canada, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Khalil’s case is “not about free speech.”
“This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card,” Rubio said.
Khalil, who acted as a spokesperson for Columbia protesters, has not been charged with a crime. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday the administration had moved to deport him under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state the power to deport a non-citizen on foreign policy grounds.
Civil rights groups and Khalil’s attorneys say the government is unconstitutionally using its immigration control powers to stop him from speaking out.
Khalil’s detention has sparked protests in New York City and other cities. On Tuesday, a man was arrested and 11 other people were given summonses for alleged disorderly conduct during a demonstration near Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan, police said.
Khalil finished his requirements for a Columbia master’s degree in December. Born in Syria, he is a grandson of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland, his lawyers said in a legal filing.
He is married to a U.S. citizen, who is expecting their first child.
Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee in Shannon, Ireland, contributed.
