Mahmoud Khalil will stay in federal custody as a judge accepted the government's rationale for his detention at an immigration facility, which included new charges of fraud regarding his green card application. Despite an earlier ruling suggesting that Khalil's pro-Palestinian activism was likely not a constitutional basis for his detention, the government cited additional grounds for his removability. This has been a significant setback for Khalil, as it comes amid broader tensions surrounding his activism and immigration status, igniting criticism from his legal team concerning the motivations behind his continued detention.
"Khalil is now detained based on that other charge of removability," the government lawyers wrote. "Detaining Khalil based on that other ground of removal is lawful."
The government's decision to continue to detain Mahmoud on these patently false and pretextual charges is only more evidence of their cowardly vindictiveness toward him and their unrelenting desire to punish him for speaking out against them and their complicity in genocide," one of Khalil's lawyers, Baher Azmy, said.
Collection
[
|
...
]