Associated Press photo.
Jena/US: Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be kicked out of the US as a national security risk, an immigration judge in Louisiana has found during a hearing over the legality of deporting the activist who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the Associated Press reported.
However, Mahmoud Khalil's attorneys said they will appeal Friday's ruling.
The government's contention that Khalil's presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation, Immigration Judge Jamee E Comans said at the conclusion of a hearing in Jena on Friday.
Comans said the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable”.
Lawyers for Khalil said they plan to keep fighting and will seek a waiver. A federal judge in New Jersey has temporarily barred Khalil's deportation.
Khalil, a legal US resident, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under President Donald Trump's promised crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
Within a day, he was flown across the country and taken to an immigration detention centre in Jena, thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife, a US citizen who is due to give birth soon.
Khalil's lawyers have challenged the legality of his detention, saying the Trump administration is trying to crack down on free speech protected by the US Constitution.
Khalil, a 30-year-old international affairs graduate student, had served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists at Columbia University who took over a campus lawn last spring to protest Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
The university brought police in to dismantle the encampment after a small group of protesters seized an administration building. Khalil is not accused of participating in the building occupation and wasn't among the people arrested in connection with the demonstrations.
But images of his maskless face at protests, along with his willingness to share his name with reporters, have made him an object of scorn among those who saw the protesters and their demands as antisemitic. The White House accused Khalil of “siding with terrorists” but has yet to cite any support for the claim.