According to a federal judge in the United States, President Donald Trump’s administration’s plan to deport pro-Palestine student activist Mahmoud Khalil is likely unconstitutional.
The government’s claim that Khalil posed a threat to US national security and international relations was unlikely to be accepted, according to New Jersey district judge Michael Farbiarz on Wednesday.
When the Secretary hasn’t determined how his actions affected US relations with a foreign country, “would a typical person have a sense that he could be removed from the United States because he [compromises]d]d]d] ‘American ‘foreign policy interests’,” that is, because he compromised US relations with other countries”? authored by Farbius. “Probably not,”
On whether Khalil’s First Amendment rights to free speech were violated, Farbiarz did not respond right away. Khalil’s request for immediate release also came under unresolved questions regarding his permanent residency application.
In the upcoming days, the judge is anticipated to make additional rulings.
In the name of national security and anti-Semitism, a ruling against the government would be the most recent legal setback for the Trump administration’s contentious efforts to halt pro-Palestine activism in the US.
However, critics have accused the Trump administration of violating fundamental constitutional rights.
The Trump administration’s first high-profile arrest was made against student protesters who were protesting Israel’s occupation of Gaza. Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of the US.
Khalil, a former graduate student, was a spokesperson for Columbia University’s anti-war protests. However, Dr. Noor Abdalla, his wife, recorded the incident while the 30-year-old was detained on March 8 in the hallway of his student housing building in New York City.
While his attorneys fought to locate him, he was then transferred from a detention facility in New Jersey to a facility in Jena, Louisiana. While the US government searches for his deportation, he is still imprisoned in the Jena facility.
Khalil has claimed in official statements that his detention is a response to the United States’ criticism of Israel’s war, which human rights organizations and experts have described as a genocide.
Civil liberties organizations are concerned that Khalil’s detention appears to be motivated by his political beliefs rather than any criminal behavior. Khalil has not been formally charged.
Khalil is still awaiting an immigration court’s decision to deport him in Louisiana. Khalil’s attorneys are arguing a habeas corpus petition in a separate case before the US federal court in Newark, New Jersey, which alleges that their client has been detained without authorization.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was used as the legal foundation for Khalil’s detention, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio acting on behalf of the Trump administration.
A foreign national can be deported if they are found to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” according to the Cold War-era law.
The First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech regardless of nationality, is in conflict with that law because it has been used so little and raises questions about its application.
Judge Farbiarz appeared to share that concern, admonishing the Trump administration’s justification as being “constitutional vagueness.”
The judge wrote on Wednesday that this means Khalil’s petition is “likely to succeed on the merits of his claim” that the government’s actions were unconstitutional.
The district court held what we already knew: Secretary Rubio’s use of immigration law to punish Mahmoud and others like him, according to Khalil’s legal team, who later praised the judge’s decision.
Khalil is just one of several famous students whose cases have challenged the law’s restrictions on what the Trump administration can do.
After facing legal challenges, other international students detained for their political activism include Mohsen Mahdawi from Columbia University and Rumeysa Ozturk from Tufts University.
Khalil is still being held in custody, though. Khalil’s request for temporary release, which would have allowed him to observe the birth of his son in April, was turned down by the government.
Additionally, it sought to keep his newborn son from being a part of visits to a detention facility in Louisiana.
Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, said in a statement, “I am furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares call itself just.”
After traveling more than 1, 000 miles with their newborn son, she pointed out that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had denied the family “this most basic human right.”
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply