A judge ordered the deportation of former student activist Mahmoud Khalil on Wednesday.
Louisiana immigration judge Jamee Comans denied Khalil’s multiple applications for asylum and a stay of his removal, ordering the government to send the Ivy League graduate to either Algeria or Syria. Khalil was arrested earlier this year and held in a Louisiana detention facility for months, missing the birth of his son.
In June, Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release, saying that it was “highly unusual” to seek detention on the threat to foreign policy rationale. In ordering his immediate deportation, Comans cited a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that called Khalil a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. Unlike Farbiarz, a federal judge, Comans is not a part of the judiciary. Immigration judges fall under the executive branch and work for the Justice Department.
Comans wrote that she can’t “question foreign policy determinations” of the Trump administration. Khalil’s legal team plans to appeal the decision, arguing that he cannot be removed immediately, as a federal court order currently bars the government from deporting or detaining him while a separate civil rights lawsuit proceeds.
Democratic lawmakers reacted with alarm on Thursday to Comans’ ruling, calling it a politically motivated attack on free speech.
“The Trump Administration’s illegal abduction and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil has always been in retaliation for speaking out against U.S. complicity in the genocide in Palestine,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., said on X. “They’re continuing to weaponize immigration courts and will stop at nothing to try and silence him.”
“The courts are being weaponized to persecute Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., for exercising his 1st Amendment rights,” added Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill. “Our taxpayers’ dollars are paying for the erosion of our civil and Constitutional rights. Tell us again how the Trump Administration is not an authoritarian regime.”
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Khalil, who has publicly criticized U.S. military and financial support for Israel, maintains that the government’s actions are retaliation for his activism.
“It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech. Their latest attempt, through a kangaroo immigration court, exposes their true colors once again,” Khalil said in a statement. “When their first effort to deport me was set to fail, they resorted to fabricating baseless and ridiculous allegations in a bid to silence me for speaking out and standing firmly with Palestine, demanding an end to the ongoing genocide. Such fascist tactics will never deter me from continuing to advocate for my people’s liberation.”
