Khalil’s arrest followed an ‘escalating doxxing campaign’, lawyer says
We’ve been speaking to the Columbia student’s lawyer, Amy Greer.
She says the graduate student was arrested following an “escalating doxxing campaign … led by a number of bad actors, who continuously tagged him” in online posts to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
These actors “continuously painted his advocacy for the Palestinian people as something other than what it was”, she says.
The lawyer says she is yet to see the warrant for Khalil’s arrest.
Greer, who was on the phone with Khalil during the arrest, says the ICE agent informed her the State Department had revoked his student visa. When she told the agent Khalil was a lawful permanent resident and therefore does not have a student visa, they said the State Department had revoked that too.
“I said they can’t do that. He’s entitled to due process under the law, and I was told he would go in front of an immigration judge. I then demanded to see the warrant before they detained Mahmoud and removed him from his home and his family, but the agent hung up on me. So as of yet, I have never seen a warrant.”
Protesters gather in Foley Square outside the Manhattan federal court in support of detained Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil
US judge extends order blocking deportation of Columbia student
New York district judge Jesse Furman has extended an order blocking US federal authorities from deporting detained student Mahmoud Khalil.
Furman, who had temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation earlier this week, extended the ban saying he needed more time to consider whether the 29-year-old’s arrest violated the US Constitution.
The Trump administration has accused Khalil of being a Hamas supporter for participating in Palestinian solidarity protests at Columbia University.
Khalil’s lawyers and rights groups argue the arrest and attempted deportation of a US legal resident for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech is unconstitutional.
She says that she filed a petition at 4:15am on Sunday, hours after the his arrest, to keep him in the jurisdiction of New York, where Columbia University is located.
Greer, Khalil’s lawyer, and her colleagues did not hear from Khalil or ICE until Monday, “at which point we learned that he had not just been taken from New York to New Jersey, he had been flown across halfway across the country to Louisiana” in the south.
At present, the lawyers are trying to have Khalil’s case heard in the Southern District of New York, she says.
“Ultimately we are arguing that Mahmoud is being unconstitutionally detained for a number of reasons, and that what the Secretary of State is doing, and that the particular section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Mahmoud is being detained under… this is an impermissible use of that provision,” she adds.
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