WASHINGTON: The arrest of a Palestinian activist who helped organize campus protests of the war in Gaza has sparked questions about whether foreign students and green card holders are protected against being deported from the US.
Mahmoud Khalil was arrested Saturday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Homeland Security officials and President Donald Trump have indicated that the arrest was directly tied to his role in the protests last spring at Columbia University in New York City.
Khalil is being held at an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana, while he awaits immigration court proceedings that could eventually lead to him being deported. His arrest has drawn criticism that he’s being unfairly and unlawfully targeted for his activism while the federal government has essentially described him as a terrorist sympathizer.
A look at what kind of protections foreign students and green card holders have and what might be next for Khalil:
Can someone with a green card be deported?
A green card holder is someone who has lawful permanent residence status in the United States.
Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer is a law professor at Cornell Law School who teaches immigration law. She said lawful permanent residents generally have many protections and “should be the most protected short of a US citizen.”
But that protection isn’t absolute. Green card holders can still be deported for committing certain crimes, failing to notify immigration officials of a change in address or engaging in marriage fraud, for example.
The Department of Homeland Security said Khalil was taken into custody as a result of Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.
Trump has argued that protesters forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting the Palestinian group Hamas, which controls Gaza and has been designated as a terrorist organization.
Khalil and other student leaders of Columbia University Apartheid Divest have rejected claims of antisemitism, saying they are part of a broader anti-war movement that also includes Jewish students and groups. But the protest coalition, at times, has also voiced support for leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Islamist organization designated by the US as a terrorist group.
Experts say that officials seem to indicate with their rhetoric that they are trying to deport Khalil on the grounds that he’s engaging in some sort of terrorist activity or somehow poses a threat.
Khalil has not been convicted of any terrorist-related activity. In fact, he has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
But experts say the federal government has fairly broad authority to arrest and try to deport a green card holder on terrorism grounds.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, green card holders do not need to be convicted of something to be “removable,” Kelley-Widmer said. They could be deported if the secretary of homeland security or the attorney general have reasonable grounds to believe they engaged in, or are likely to engage in, terrorist activities, she said.
But Kelley-Widmer said she’s never seen a case where the alleged terrorist activity happened in the US, and she questioned whether taking part in protests as Khalil did qualifies.
What did ICE say about why they were arresting him?
One of the key issues in Khalil’s case is what ICE agents said to his lawyer at the time he was arrested.
His lawyer, Amy Greer, said the agents who took him into custody at his university-owned home near Columbia initially claimed to be acting on a State Department order to revoke his student visa.
But when Greer informed them that Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card, they said they would revoke that documentation instead.
Kelley-Widmer said that exchange raises questions about how familiar the agents who arrested him were with the law or whether there was a “real disregard for the rule of law.”
“I think we should be really concerned that this is happening,” she said.
What are the next steps in his case?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a message posted Sunday on X that the administration will be “revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
If someone is in the country on a student visa, the State Department does have authority to revoke it if the person violates certain conditions. For example, said Florida immigration attorney John Gihon, it’s quite common for the State Department to cancel visas of foreign students who get arrested for drunk driving.
But when it comes to someone who’s a lawful permanent resident, that generally requires an immigration judge to determine whether they can be deported.
Gihon said the next step is that Khalil would receive charging documents explaining why he’s being detained and why the government wants to remove him, as well as a notice to appear in immigration court.
Generally, he should receive those within 72 hours of being arrested, and then he would make an initial appearance before an immigration judge. That could take from 10 days to a month, Gihon said.
But he cautioned that right now he’s seeing extensive delays across the immigration court system, with clients often moved around the country to different facilities.
“We are having people who are detained and then they’re bounced around to multiple different detention facilities. And then sometimes they’re transferred across the country,” he said.
Khalil’s lawyers have also filed a lawsuit challenging his detention. A federal judge in New York City ordered that Khalil not be deported while the court considered his case. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Arrest of Palestinian activist stirs questions about protections for students and green card holders
https://arab.news/nhpwc
Arrest of Palestinian activist stirs questions about protections for students and green card holders
- A green card holder is someone who has lawful permanent residence status in the United States
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a message posted Sunday on X that the administration will be “revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported”
Japan scraps US meeting after Washington demands more defense spending: Report
- US asked Japan to boost defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP, higher than an earlier request of 3 percent, FT reports
- Japan’s Nikkei also reported that Trump’s government was pressing its Asian allies, including Japan, to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense
WASHINGTON: Japan has canceled a regular high-level meeting with its key ally the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defense, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani in Washington on July 1 for the annual 2+2 security talks.
But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the US asked Japan to boost defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product, higher than an earlier request of 3 percent, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Saturday that President Donald Trump’s government was demanding that its Asian allies, including Japan, spend 5 percent of GDP on defense.
A US official who asked not to be identified told Reuters that Japan had “postponed” the talks in a decision made several weeks ago. The official did not cite a reason. A non-government source familiar with the issue said he had also heard Japan had pulled out of the meeting but not the reason for it doing so.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said she had no comment on the FT report when asked about it at regular briefing. The Pentagon also had no immediate comment.
Japan’s embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. The nation’s foreign and defense ministries and the Prime Minister’s Office did not answer phone calls seeking comment outside business hours on Saturday.
The FT said the higher spending demand was made in recent weeks by Elbridge Colby, the third-most senior Pentagon official, who has also recently upset another key US ally in the Indo-Pacific by launching a review of a project to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
In March, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said that other nations do not decide Japan’s defense budget after Colby, in his nomination hearing to be under secretary of defense for policy, called for Tokyo to spend more to counter China.
Japan and other US allies have been engaged in difficult trade talks with the United States over President Donald Trump’s worldwide tariff offensive.
The FT said the decision to cancel the July 1 meeting was also related to Japan’s July 20 upper house elections, expected to be a major test for Ishiba’s minority coalition government.
Japan’s move on the 2+2 comes ahead of a meeting of the US-led NATO alliance in Europe next week, at which Trump is expected to press his demand that European allies boost their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP.
Trump confirms DR Congo-Rwanda peace deal, gripes about Nobels
- DR Congo and Rwanda officials expected to sign accord in Washington next week
- Trump's campaign promise to quickly end wars in Ukraine and Gaza have both failed
- But he believes he deserves a Nobel for his supposed mediating role in other conflicts
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump took credit Friday for a peace deal negotiated in Washington between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda — and complained that he would not get a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
The warring African nations said in a joint statement on Wednesday that they had initialed an agreement aimed at ending the conflict in eastern DRC — to be formally signed in the US capital next week.
“This is a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World!” Trump said in a Truth Social post confirming the breakthrough.
But his triumphant tone darkened as he complained that he had been overlooked by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for his mediating role in conflicts between India and Pakistan, as well as Serbia and Kosovo.
He also demanded credit for “keeping peace” between Egypt and Ethiopia and brokering the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements aiming to normalize relations between Israel and several Arab nations.
Trump campaigned for office as a “peacemaker” who would use his negotiating skills to quickly end wars in Ukraine and Gaza, although both conflicts are still raging five months into his presidency.
Indian officials have denied that he had any role in its ceasefire with Pakistan.
And the Republican greatly exaggerated the significance of the 2020 Serbia-Kosovo agreements, which were statements of intent thin on detail and that quickly unraveled.
Trump’s claims for the Abraham Accords being able to “unify the Middle East” have also yet to be realized, with war breaking out between Israel and Iran, and no end in sight to the conflict in Gaza.
The president said officials from DR Congo and Rwanda would be in Washington on Monday for their signing, although their joint statement said they would put pen to paper on June 27.
The resource-rich eastern DRC, which borders Rwanda, has been plagued by violence for three decades, with a resurgence since the anti-government M23 armed group went on a renewed offensive at the end of 2021.
The deal — which builds on a declaration of principles signed in April — was reached during three days of talks between the neighbors in Washington, according to their statement.
Trump has received multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations from supporters and loyal lawmakers over the years.
He has made no secret of his irritation at missing out on the prestigious award, bringing it up as recently as February during an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
President Barack Obama won the prize soon after taking office in 2009, and Trump complained during his 2024 election campaign that his Democratic predecessor was not worthy of the honor.
US federal judge blocks Trump effort to keep Harvard from hosting foreign students
- Homeland Security earlier withdrew the school’s certification to host foreign students after Harvard resisted Trump's interference
- Harvard hosts roughly 7,000 international students, about a quarter of its total enrollment
WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to keep Harvard University from hosting international students, delivering the Ivy League school another victory as it challenges multiple government sanctions amid a battle with the White House.
The order from US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston preserves Harvard’s ability to host foreign students while the case is decided, but it falls short of resolving all of Harvard’s legal hurdles to hosting international students. Notably, Burroughs said the federal government still has authority to review Harvard’s ability to host international students through normal processes outlined in law.
Harvard sued the Department of Homeland Security in May after the agency abruptly withdrew the school’s certification to host foreign students and issue paperwork for their visas, skirting most of its usual procedures. The action would have forced Harvard’s roughly 7,000 international students — about a quarter of its total enrollment — to transfer or risk being in the US illegally. New foreign students would have been barred from coming to Harvard.
The university said it was experiencing illegal retaliation for rejecting the White House’s demands to overhaul Harvard policies related to campus protests, admissions, hiring and more. Burroughs temporarily had halted the government’s action hours after Harvard sued.
Less than two weeks later, in early June, President Donald Trump tried a new strategy. He issued a proclamation to block foreign students from entering the US to attend Harvard, citing a different legal justification. Harvard challenged the move, saying the president was attempting an end-run around the temporary court order. Burroughs temporarily blocked Trump’s proclamation as well. That emergency block remains in effect, and Burroughs did not address the proclamation in her order Friday.
“We expect the judge to issue a more enduring decision in the coming days,” Harvard said Friday in an email to international students. “Our Schools will continue to make contingency plans toward ensuring that our international students and scholars can pursue their academic work to the fullest extent possible, should there be a change to student visa eligibility or their ability to enroll at Harvard.”
Students in limbo
The stops and starts of the legal battle have unsettled current students and left others around the world waiting to find out whether they will be able to attend America’s oldest and wealthiest university.
The Trump administration’s efforts to stop Harvard from enrolling international students have created an environment of “profound fear, concern, and confusion,” the university said in a court filing. Countless international students have asked about transferring from the university, Harvard immigration services director Maureen Martin said.
Still, admissions consultants and students have indicated most current and prospective Harvard scholars are holding out hope they’ll be able to attend the university.
For one prospective graduate student, an admission to Harvard’s Graduate School of Education had rescued her educational dreams. Huang, who asked to be identified only by her surname for fear of being targeted, had seen her original doctoral offer at Vanderbilt University rescinded after federal cuts to research and programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Harvard stepped in a few weeks later with a scholarship she couldn’t refuse. She rushed to schedule her visa interview in Beijing. More than a month after the appointment, despite court orders against the Trump administration’s policies, she still hasn’t heard back.
“Your personal effort and capability means nothing in this era,” Huang said in a social media post. “Why does it have to be so hard to go to school?”
An ongoing battle
Trump has been warring with Harvard for months after the university rejected a series of government demands meant to address conservative complaints that the school has become too liberal and has tolerated anti-Jewish harassment. Trump officials have cut more than $2.6 billion in research grants, ended federal contracts and threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
On Friday, the president said in a post on Truth Social that the administration has been working with Harvard to address “their largescale improprieties” and that a deal with Harvard could be announced within the next week. “They have acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to be committed to doing what is right,” Trump’s post said.
Trump’s administration first targeted Harvard’s international students in April. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that Harvard turn over a trove of records related to any dangerous or illegal activity by foreign students. Harvard says it complied, but Noem said the response fell short and on May 22 revoked Harvard’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
The sanction immediately put Harvard at a disadvantage as it competed for the world’s top students, the school said in its lawsuit, and it harmed Harvard’s reputation as a global research hub. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the lawsuit said.
The action would have upended some graduate schools that recruit heavily from abroad. Some schools overseas quickly offered invitations to Harvard’s students, including two universities in Hong Kong.
Harvard President Alan Garber previously said the university has made changes to combat antisemitism. But Harvard, he said, will not stray from its “core, legally-protected principles,” even after receiving federal ultimatums.
Trump says his intel chief was ‘wrong’ to believe Iran was not building a nuclear weapon
- Also says Israeli strikes could be ‘very hard to stop’ now that they are “winning”
- After Trump's remark, Tulsi Gabbard says her statement was taken out of context
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Friday that his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was “wrong” when she previously said that the US believed Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon, and he suggested that it would be “very hard to stop” Israel’s strikes on Iran in order to negotiate a possible ceasefire.
Trump has recently taken a more aggressive public stance toward Tehran as he’s sought more time to weigh whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility. Buried under a mountain, the facility is believed to be out of the reach of all but America’s “bunker-buster” bombs.
After landing in New Jersey for an evening fundraiser for his super political action committee, Trump was asked about Gabbard’s comments to Congress in March that US spy agencies believed that Iran wasn’t working on nuclear warheads. The president responded, “Well then, my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?”
Informed that it had been Gabbard, Trump said, “She’s wrong.”
In a subsequent post on X, Gabbard said her testimony was taken out of context “as a way to manufacture division.”
“America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly,” she wrote. “President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree.”
Still, disavowing Gabbard’s previous assessment came a day after the White House said Trump would decide within two weeks whether the US military would get directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. It said seeking additional time was “based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.”
But on Friday, Trump himself seemed to cast doubts on the possibility of talks leading to a pause in fighting between Israel and Iran. He said that, while he might support a ceasefire, Israel’s strikes on Iran could be “very hard to stop.”
Asked about Iran suggesting that, if the US was serious about furthering negotiations, it could call on Israel to stop its strikes, Trump responded, “I think it’s very hard to make that request right now.”
“If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing,” Trump said. “But we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”
The president later added, “It’s very hard to stop when you look at it.”
“Israel’s doing well in terms of war. And, I think, you would say that Iran is doing less well. It’s a little bit hard to get somebody to stop,” Trump said.
Trump campaigned on decrying “endless wars” and has vowed to be an international peacemaker. That’s led some, even among conservatives, to point to Trump’s past criticism of the US invasion of Iraq beginning in 2003 as being at odds with his more aggressive stance toward Iran now.
Trump suggested the two situations were very different, though.
“There were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were. And that was somewhat pre-nuclear. You know, it was, it was a nuclear age, but nothing like it is today,” Trump said of his past criticism of the administration of President George W. Bush.
He added of Iran’s current nuclear program, “It looked like I’m right about the material that they’ve gathered already. It’s a tremendous amount of material.”
Trump also cast doubts on Iran’s developing nuclear capabilities for civilian pursuits, like power generation.
“You’re sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world,” he said. “It’s a little bit hard to see why you’d need that.”
Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention
- Khalil, a Columbia University student, who became a leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests has been in custody since March facing deportation
- District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release on bail allowing him to return to New York while his case proceeds
JENA, Louisiana: Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released Friday from federal immigration detention, freed after three months by a judge’s ruling after becoming a symbol of President Donald Trump ‘s clampdown on campus protests.
The former Columbia University graduate student left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday. He is expected to head to New York to reunite with his US citizen wife and newborn son.
The Trump administration sought to deport him over his role in pro-Palestinian protests
“Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue,” he said outside the facility in a remote part of Louisiana. “This shouldn’t have taken three months.”
Khalil was released after US District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal US resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
“Petitioner is not a flight risk and the evidence presented is that he is not a danger to the community,” he said. “Period, full stop.”
Later in the hourlong hearing, which took place by phone, the judge said the government had “clearly not met” the standards for detention.
The government filed notice Friday evening that it’s appealing Khalil’s release.
Khalil had to surrender his passport and can’t travel internationally, but he will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the country, including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress.
Khalil was the first person arrested under President Donald Trump ‘s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s devastating war in Gaza. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil must be expelled from the country because his continued presence could harm American foreign policy.
Farbiarz had ruled earlier that the government couldn’t deport Khalil on those grounds, but gave it leeway to continue pursuing a potential deportation based on allegations that he lied on his green card application. Trump administration lawyers repeated that accusation at Friday’s court hearing. It’s an accusation Khalil disputes.
In issuing his ruling Friday, the judge agreed with Khalil’s lawyers that the protest leader was being prevented from exercising his free speech and due process rights despite no obvious reason for his continued detention. The judge noted that Khalil is now clearly a public figure.
Khalil’s lawyers had asked that he either be freed on bail or, at the very least, moved from Louisiana to New Jersey so he can be closer to his wife and newborn son, who are both US citizens.
Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said she can finally “breathe a sigh of relief” after her husband’s three months in detention.
“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others,” she said in a statement provided by Khalil’s lawyers. “But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family.”
The judge’s decision comes after several other scholars targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri.
Khalil was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The international affairs graduate student isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. He served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists and wasn’t among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics.
The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country as it considers their views antisemitic.
