{"id":192979,"date":"2026-04-11T02:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/192979\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T02:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:39:17","slug":"mahmoud-khalil-loses-appeal-at-trump-influenced-board-as-potential-deportation-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/192979\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahmoud Khalil loses appeal at Trump-influenced board as potential deportation looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

An immigration appeals board has issued\u00a0a final removal order against Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil<\/a>, taking the Palestinian activist one step closer to possibly being deported.<\/p>\n

Khalil\u2019s legal team had expected the unfavorable ruling from the Board of Immigration Appeals<\/a>, an administrative body operated by the Justice Department and staffed nearly entirely by appointees of President Trump.<\/p>\n

His lawyers said it would have no immediate impact of substance on his liberty, with immigration authorities prevented from detaining or deporting him<\/a> until there\u2019s a resolution in a separate federal court case challenging the legality of the government\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

But the order is another hurdle blocking Khalil\u2019s avenues to remaining in the country, where he is a lawful permanent resident and recently welcomed his first child<\/a> with his wife, an American citizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have committed no crime,\u201d Khalil, 31, said in a statement. \u201cI have broken no law. The only thing I am guilty of is speaking out against the genocide in Palestine \u2014 and this administration has weaponized the immigration system to punish me for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family is here. My life is here. I reject any attempt to intimidate me out of my home based on lies and ideological attacks. This is not justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\"PalestinianPalestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil stands with his wife, Noor Abdalla, as they speak and participate in a rally on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on June 22, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Khalil intends to appeal the Board of Immigration Appeals\u2019 decision to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, his lawyers said.<\/p>\n

In doing so, he must bring his legal challenge before a federal appeals court that\u2019s widely considered to be the most conservative in the United States<\/a>. Khalil\u2019s immigration case is subject to the 5th Circuit, as opposed to an appeals court in New York where he lives, because the Trump administration transferred him to Louisiana hours after he was detained last March in a Columbia-owned building.<\/p>\n

Following more than 100 days in detention, and missing the birth of his son and graduation, Khalil was released last summer after a New Jersey federal judge determined the Trump administration\u2019s primary reason for seeking to deport him would likely be deemed unconstitutional<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The initial reason for targeting Khalil provided by the government was that his activities in the U.S., protesting Israel\u2019s bombing and occupation of Gaza and the West Bank while studying for his master\u2019s degree at Columbia, posed a national security threat.<\/p>\n

When Khalil\u2019s lawyers challenged the foreign policy charge on First Amendment grounds<\/a>, the Trump administration added a second ground for removal \u2014 claiming he failed to include details of his work experience at the United Nations on his green card application. His attorneys have lambasted that accusation as entirely without merit.<\/p>\n

The Board of Immigration Appeals\u2019 Thursday decision relied on both charges, according to Khalil\u2019s lawyers. The Daily News has sought to obtain a copy of the document that was not filed publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all my decades as an immigration lawyer, I have never seen such a baseless and politically motivated decision. The BIA\u2019s decision has absolutely no support in the record, violates a federal court order, and we\u2019ll be fighting it until the end,\u201d Khalil\u2019s immigration lawyer Marc Van Der Hout said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal courts have already agreed that Mahmoud was targeted for his speech, and there is likely much more evidence of the government\u2019s unlawful retaliation that has yet to come to light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MahmoudMahmoud Khalil, center, reacts to supporters alongside his wife, Noor Abdallah, second from left, upon arriving at Newark International Airport, Saturday, June 21, 2025, after being released from a 104-day ICE detention in Louisiana. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

The decision further thickens the bramble in a legal maze Khalil has found himself in since his arrest last year. While the federal court rulings from last summer continue to protect him from ICE, his chances of an ultimate victory in that matter \u2014 what\u2019s known as a habeas corpus petition \u2014 are uncertain.<\/p>\n

A panel of judges in the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals last year granted a victory to the Trump administration in a split 2-to-1 decision, which found the New Jersey federal court didn\u2019t have jurisdiction to consider the habeas matter.<\/p>\n

That decision hasn\u2019t taken effect, though, as Khalil\u2019s lawyers have asked all active judges to reconsider the panel\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

If taken up by the full bench, one of those justices would be newly-appointed 3rd Circuit Judge Emil Bove, <\/a>Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer. Khalil has asked Bove to recuse himself from the matter based on his recent work at the Justice Department, which included probes into international student-activists.<\/p>\n

As his cases make their way through two separate systems, Khalil, on the anniversary of his arrest, recently spoke with The News about the personal toll the last year has taken on him and his family.<\/p>\n

He said he was at first in denial about his circumstances, only to realize that his rights weren\u2019t ironclad in the U.S. immigration system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRights will not protect you,\u201d he told The News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An immigration appeals board has issued\u00a0a final removal order against Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, taking the Palestinian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,85,607,9,24,12,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-192979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-national-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-the-bronx","16":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","17":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}