US immigration board denies Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation appeal
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New York: A US immigration appeals board has rejected Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s bid to halt his deportation, bringing the former Columbia University graduate student closer to possible re-arrest and expulsion.
The Board of Immigration Appeals issued a final removal order on Thursday, according to Khalil’s lawyers. The board’s decisions remain confidential, with no immediate response from the US Department of Justice.
Khalil, 31, a legal permanent resident, dismissed the ruling as “biased and politically motivated”. “The only thing I am guilty of is speaking out against the genocide in Palestine – and this administration has weaponised the immigration system to punish me for it,” he said in a statement.
As a leader in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protests, Khalil faces government claims of Hamas alignment—though no evidence of terrorist ties or antisemitism has been presented. Arrested last March, he endured 104 days in detention, missing his first child’s birth, before a New Jersey federal judge ordered his release.
A US appeals panel later ruled 2-1 that the judge overstepped, mandating the case exhaust immigration courts first. Khalil’s team now seeks full panel reconsideration and has urged one judge to recuse himself over prior Justice Department ties to protester probes.
Born in Syria to a Palestinian family, Khalil holds Algerian citizenship via a relative. He warns of targeting or death upon deportation to either country.
(Inputs from AP)
