Trump’s Policy to Deport Activists Is Unconstitutional, Khalil’s Lawyers Say

 Demonstrators hold placards as they protest on the day of a hearing on the detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, in New York City, US, March 12, 2025. (Reuters)
Demonstrators hold placards as they protest on the day of a hearing on the detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, in New York City, US, March 12, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump’s Policy to Deport Activists Is Unconstitutional, Khalil’s Lawyers Say

 Demonstrators hold placards as they protest on the day of a hearing on the detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, in New York City, US, March 12, 2025. (Reuters)
Demonstrators hold placards as they protest on the day of a hearing on the detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, in New York City, US, March 12, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration’s policy of deporting some foreign nationals who participate in pro-Palestinian protests is unconstitutional, lawyers for a detained Columbia University student said.

In their first filing since US authorities articulated the legal basis for arresting Mahmoud Khalil, his lawyers urged US District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan to immediately release him from immigration detention because his free speech rights were violated.

"The government’s unlawful policy of targeting noncitizens for arrest and removal based on protected speech is...viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment," Khalil’s lawyers, led by Amy Belsher of the New York Civil Liberties Foundation, wrote in a Thursday night court filing.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department, which is representing the government in court, said in a statement: "Being in the United States as a non-citizen is a privilege, not a right ... Mahmoud won’t be missed."

Khalil’s case has become a flashpoint in Republican President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport some participants in the pro-Palestinian protests that swept US college campuses after Hamas group’s October 2023 attack and Israel’s subsequent military campaign.

Earlier this week, Justice Department lawyers representing the government said Khalil, 30, was subject to deportation because Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that his presence or activities in the country could have "serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."

The provision the government cited in justifying Rubio's ability to declare Khalil deportable is part of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act and has rarely been invoked, legal experts have said, meaning there is little precedent for courts to turn to in determining its constitutionality. Khalil’s lawyers said that statute was not meant to silence dissent.

The government did not elaborate in court papers on how Khalil could harm US foreign policy. Trump, without evidence, has accused him of supporting Hamas, and Rubio told reporters earlier this week that noncitizen protesters who disrupt campus life should have their visas revoked.

In their filing, Khalil's lawyers sought to push back on the Trump administration's portrayal of their client. They called him a "mediator and negotiator" and pointed to a spring 2024 interview with CNN in which he said, "I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined."

Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent and became a US lawful permanent resident last year, was arrested by Department of Homeland Security agents on Saturday night at his university residence in Manhattan.

The government said he was then brought to an immigration detention center in New Jersey and later flown to Louisiana, where he is currently being held.

Furman has temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation while his lawyers’ challenge to the legality of his arrest, known as a habeas corpus petition, plays out. Even before the block, there was no indication the student activist’s deportation was imminent.

In a court filing on Friday, Khalil's lawyers said they planned to file a further motion later in the day asking Furman to grant him bail. They said if he continues to be detained, he could miss the birth of his first child. Khalil's wife, an American citizen, is eight months pregnant.

Khalil's case could ultimately test where courts draw the line between protected speech guaranteed to citizens and noncitizens alike under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, and the executive branch’s view that some protests in the US can undermine foreign policy.

Columbia, the epicenter of anti-Israel protests at dozens of US college campuses last spring, has become a prime target of the Trump administration, which has accused it of an inadequate response to antisemitism on campus and allowing Jewish students to be intimidated.

Protest organizers say criticism of Israel’s military assault on Gaza is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.

Last week, the federal government canceled about $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia because of what it described as antisemitism.

On Thursday, Department of Homeland Security agents searched two student residences at Columbia pursuant to judicial warrants, its president said, though no one was arrested and no items were removed. The university has expelled some students who occupied a university building during a protest last spring.



Trump Freezes US-funded Media Outlets Including Voice of America

FILE - The Voice of America building, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - The Voice of America building, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
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Trump Freezes US-funded Media Outlets Including Voice of America

FILE - The Voice of America building, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - The Voice of America building, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

President Donald Trump's administration on Saturday put journalists at Voice of America and other US-funded broadcasters on leave, abruptly freezing decades-old outlets long seen as critical to countering Russian and Chinese information offensives.
Hundreds of staffers at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes and office-issued equipment, AFP reported.
Trump, who has already eviscerated the US global aid agency and the Education Department, on Friday issued an executive order listing the US Agency for Global Media as among "elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary."
Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter put in charge of the media agency after she lost a US Senate bid, said in an email to the outlets that federal grant money "no longer effectuates agency priorities."
The White House said the cuts would ensure "taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda," marking a dramatic tone shift towards the networks established to extend US influence overseas.
White House press official Harrison Fields wrote "goodbye" on X in 20 languages, a jab at the outlets' multilingual coverage.
VOA director Michael Abramowitz said he was among 1,300 staffers placed on leave Saturday.
"VOA needs thoughtful reform, and we have made progress in that regard. But today's action will leave Voice of America unable to carry out its vital mission," he said on Facebook, noting that its coverage -- in 48 languages -- reaches 360 million people each week.
The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, called the cancellation of funding "a massive gift to America's enemies."
"The Iranian ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years," its president, Stephen Capus, said in a statement.
Uncensored reporting
US-funded media have reoriented themselves since the end of the Cold War, dropping much of the programming geared toward newly democratic Central and Eastern European countries and focusing on Russia and China.
Chinese state-funded media have expanded their reach sharply over the past decade, including by offering free services to outlets in the developing world that would otherwise pay for Western news agencies.
Radio Free Asia, established in 1996, sees its mission as providing uncensored reporting into countries without free media including China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam.
The outlets have an editorial firewall, with a stated guarantee of independence despite government funding.
The policy has angered some around Trump, who has long railed against media and suggested that government-funded outlets should promote his policies.
The move to end US-funded media is likely to meet challenges, much like Trump's other sweeping cuts. Congress, not the president, has the constitutional power of the purse and Radio Free Asia in particular has enjoyed bipartisan support in the past.
'Chaos'
Advocacy group Reporters Without Borders condemned the decision, saying it "threatens press freedom worldwide and negates 80 years of American history in supporting the free flow of information."
Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and senior Democratic congresswoman Lois Frankel said in a joint statement that Trump's move would "cause lasting damage to US efforts to counter propaganda around the world."
One VOA employee, who requested anonymity, described Saturday's message as another "perfect example of the chaos and unprepared nature of the process," with VOA staffers presuming that scheduled programming is off but not told so directly.

A Radio Free Asia employee said: "It's not just about losing your income. We have staff and contractors who fear for their safety. We have reporters who work under the radar in authoritarian countries in Asia. We have staff in the US who fear deportation if their work visa is no longer valid."
"Wiping us out with the strike of a pen is just terrible."