"They Are Deporting Me Too Fast, Please Make Them Stop" Says Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia Protest Leader to District Court.

The Anti-Israel Columbia Protest Leader -- In His 30s -- With A Removal Order based on lying on his visa application tells a judge without jurisdiction that he should make the Government slow down.

I’m taking an opportunity here to revisit a case that received much attention when it first broke, but has slipped from the headlines over the past few months.

Mahmoud Khalil was the “face” of the Columbia University protests of the war in Gaza. He was the individual who “volunteered” to negotiate with the police and Columbia to reach a resolution of the takeover of parts of the campus by the radical pro-Palestinian rioters who threatened Jewish students and destroyed University property in the fall of 2024.

After the election, Mohammed was targeted for deportation by the Trump Administration on the basis that he was only in the U.S. on a student visa. He was detained initially under an Immigration and Nationality Act statute, 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1227, giving the Secretary of State the authority to determine if a visa holder’s continued presence “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” But it was later determined that when he applied for his visa, and later when he sought Permanent Resident Alien status, he failed to disclose his association with certain groups abroad.

There have been a few twists and turns in this saga since it was first filed, and I’m not going. to delve into any particular issue in that regard here . But to summarize, it was not true that Khalil was in the U.S. only on a student visa. He had married a U.S. citizen and has an application pending for permanent resident alien status as the spouse of a U.S. citizen. It was transparently obvious that he had received favorable treatment from the Biden Administration in this process as he had obtained a Green Card in a very short time, allowing him to work while his application for Permanent Resident Alien status was being resolved. Because it was based on marrying a U.S. citizen, that process can be lengthy as a method of combatting marriage fraud.

He filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District of New Jersey to challenge the legality of his detention, claiming the statute being relied upon by the Administration was unconstitutionally vague. The Judge in New Jersey ultimately agreed, finding that because Khalil’s conduct in leading the protest movement was ostensibly covered by the First Amendment, the statute was too vague in what kinds of conduct could be relied upon by the Secretary of State in making his decision to deport. The lawful resident alien did not have sufficient “notice” by the language of the statute what kind of activity would subject him to deportation and what kind of activity was protected by the First Amendment.

But the Trump Administration shifted the basis for his removal — it alleged that Khalil had been untruthful on his visa application and later his application for resident alien status by failing to disclose his associations with certain groups that supported terrorist activities abroad. Had he done so, that information could have formed the basis to deny him a visa to enter. On September 12, 2025, an Immigration Judge Agreed and issued an Order of Removal in a 22 page Opinion.

“This Court finds that the Respondent’s lack of candor on his I-485 was not an oversight by an uninformed, uneducated applicant... Rather, this Court finds that Respondent willfully misrepresented material fact(s) for the sole purpose of circumventing the immigration process and reducing the likelihood his application would be denied. This Court cannot and will not condone such an action by granting a discretionary waiver.”

Deportation Order: “It is hereby further ordered that respondent be removed from the United States to Algeria, or in the alternative to Syria.”