Judge says Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil can't be deported from U.S. as protesters call for his release
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The Columbia University grad, who helped organize the school’s pro-Palestinian rallies, was detained Saturday night and told his student visa was being revoked, his attorney said.

Summary

A federal judge blocked the removal of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil from the U.S. after his arrest by ICE.

Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who helped organize pro-Palestinian protests, was arrested Saturday by ICE agents who claimed his visa was revoked for supporting Hamas.

The Trump administration continues to claim he violated an executive order prohibiting anti-Semitism, though no evidence was provided. Protesters in NYC demand his release, calling the arrest unconstitutional.

His location remains unclear. The ACLU and immigrant rights groups argue the detention violates free speech, warning it sets a dangerous precedent.

  • talEnglish
    32·
    1 day ago

    The question you’re struggling with is regarding people who aren’t already within the jurisdiction, or are applying for citizenship.

    I don’t think that the critical division here is over admissability versus deportability.

    https://reason.com/2025/03/10/is-it-constitutional-to-deport-immigrants-for-political-speech/

    Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, tells Reason that Trump’s executive order “clearly is based on federal statutory authority, so one cannot make the argument that the president is exceeding his constitutional powers.”

    Still, the question remains whether the statute itself and the executive order enforcing it are constitutional. Strossen explains that “non-citizens with any immigration status at all, including unauthorized immigrants, have the same First Amendment rights that U.S. citizens have…insofar as they have the same protection against criminal penalties, criminal investigations, or civil law enforcement.” However, it’s unclear “whether non-citizens have the same First Amendment rights as citizens with respect to the deportation process.”

    The issue is that the criteria that the Executive Branch may use for deportation are not fully-defined in the Constitution or (yet) in case law.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      The issue is that the criteria that the Executive Branch may use for deportation are not fully-defined in the Constitution

      Bullshit. If there was an exception to the First Amendment for that, it would’ve been written into it!

    • minnow@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 day ago

      Huh. TIL.

      I guess this is exactly what the judicial branch was created for. We’ve got an undefined area of legality, somebody’s got to sort it out, and until they do we just can’t say for sure one way or the other