Ex-Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil hearing expected to focus on free speech

Former Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s hearing in Manhattan federal court Wednesday is expected to focus on free speech.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman will weigh in on the arrest of Khalil, who is a permanent U.S. resident. Khalil, who has led some pro-Palestinian protests on the school’s campus, was arrested Saturday by immigration enforcement agents in New York and was taken to an immigration detention center in Louisiana.

Furman had previously ordered Khalil, who holds a green card, not be deported from the country as the case develops.

Khalil’s counsel is expected to contend that the activist’s arrest is unconstitutional and that he should be freed and reunited with his wife, a U.S. citizen.

“Because Mahmoud has been so prominent, active and outspoken in support of Palestinian rights, he’s been marked as a target,” Khalil’s attorney Ramzi Kassem said, according to The New York Times. “What’s being done to him is unconstitutional, it is unlawful, and we intend to do everything in our power to ensure the Trump administration will not get away with it in court.”

Khalil has not been charged with any crime. 

President Trump said Monday that Khalil is a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” and stated that similar arrests could be coming down the pike. 

While on the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly vowed to arrest and deport international students in the U.S. who had taken part in the pro-Palestinian encampments last year.

The encampments, which emerged on college campuses across the country, did force some universities to move classes online or cancel graduating ceremonies entirely. More than 2,000 arrests were made.

Protests in New York City have popped up following Khalil’s arrest Saturday. Some Democratic Party lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also called for his release. 

Fourteen House Democrats penned a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, asking her to free Khalil, whom they described as a “political prisoner, wrongfully and unlawfully detained, who deserves to be at home in New York preparing for the birth of his first child.”