Former Columbia grad student and anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil is facing deportation to Algeria, marking the end of a prolonged legal battle over his immigration status, according to federal officials.
Arrested by ICE in early last year, the Syrian-born activist is set to be removed from the US after the Trump administration accused him of fraudulent activities on his green card application.
“It looks like he’ll go to Algeria. That’s what the thought is right now,” said Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin during an interview on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight” Wednesday.
“It’s a reminder for those who are in this country on a visa or green card. You are a guest in this country — act like it,” she added.
“It is a privilege, not a right, to be in this country to live or to study.”
The Trump administration has been fighting to deport the 31-year-old activist since he was among the first to be detained during the government’s crackdown on anti-Israel campus demonstrations.
Khalil, accused by the government of supporting Hamas, spent three months in a Louisiana immigration detention center, missing the birth of his first child.
The government justified his arrest under a rarely-used statute that allows for the expulsion of noncitizens if their beliefs are viewed as a threat to US foreign policy interests.
In June, a federal judge in New Jersey ordered Khalil’s release after ruling that the justification for his detention would likely be deemed unconstitutional.
The White House achieved a significant victory last week when a federal appeals court overturned the ruling calling for Khalil’s release from the ICE facility.
The three-judge panel determined that his case should have been allowed to proceed through the immigration court system before he could challenge it legally.
Following the ruling, McLaughlin advised Khalil to “self-deport now before he is arrested, deported, and never given a chance to return.”
It remains uncertain when the authorities will attempt to detain Khalil.
Khalil, who has refuted the allegations against him as “baseless and ridiculous,” claims that the situation is a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
