The Trump administration has accused Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and anti-Israel protester, of failing to disclose his employment with a United Nations Palestinian relief agency on his visa application, alleging this omission warrants deportation.
Khalil, a 30-year-old green card holder who is married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on March 8. In a court brief dated Sunday, the U.S. government outlined its arguments for keeping Khalil in custody while his removal proceedings continue.
The department says Khalil fraudulently applied to change his immigration status without fully disclosing his “membership in certain organization,” which could be grounds for deportation.
Among those organizations was the United Nation’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The relief agency was infamously stripped of tens of millions of dollars in federal funding after Israel claimed that 12 of its members took part in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The DOJ says Khalil did not disclose that he was a political officer of UNRWA from June 2023-Nov.. 2023.
The DOJ also says Khalil did not reveal he was working at the Syria office in the British embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, when he applied for a visa or that he was a member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which led anti-Israel protests at the Ivy League institution.
The DOJ said Sunday that the fact he allegedly lied on his application provided an “independent basis” to deport him, overriding free speech rights.
“Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations and failed to disclose continuing employment by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut when he submitted his adjustment of status application,” they said. “It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech.”
“Thus, Khalil’s First Amendment allegations are a red herring, and there is an independent basis to justify removal sufficient to foreclose Khalil’s constitutional claim here,” they said. Khalil, a native of Syria and citizen of Algeria, entered the U.S. on a student visa in 2022 and later filed to become a permanent resident in 2024.
He is the first in the Trump administration’s crusade to revoke student visas for participating in protests.
The anti-Israel protests wreaked havoc on college campuses following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, leading to President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to revoke foreigners’ student 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 fact sheet issued by the White House. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
