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US claims Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil covered up working for UN's Palestinian relief agency
Khalil was a UNRWA political officer in 2023, which the Trump administration claims he did not disclose
The US government on Sunday has alleged that Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil withheld information about working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, and has cited this as grounds for his deportation, reported Reuters.
Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained on April 8, was a prominent figure in the pro-Palestine demonstrations which had been taking place on the Columbia University campus in protest of Israel's actions in Gaza.
The Donald Trump-led government had stated that Khalil's presence and activities in America had serious foreign policy implications and had called for him to be deported, despite him being a legal resident of the country.
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Khalil was a UNRWA political officer in 2023, which the Trump administration claims he did not disclose and cited a March 17 document informing him that these were grounds for deportation. The UNRWA provides food and healthcare to Palestinian refugees.
They also accused Khalil of not mentioning on his visa application that he had previously worked for the Syria office in the British embassy in Beirut.
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A judge halted the order to deport Mahmoud Khalil, who is being kept in custody in the state of Louisiana, as a habeas petition challenging his detention was also being heard in a district court in New Jersey.
The US government has argued that the New Jersey district court lacked jurisdiction to hear a case challenging Mahmoud Khalil's custody.
The U.N. said in August an investigation found nine of the agency's 32,000 staff members may have been involved in the October 7 attacks.
Mahmoud Khalil's defence
The pro-Palestine activist has called himself a political prisoner and brought into question the issue of freedom of speech in the US, as the Trump administration continues to crack down on student activists and threaten the funding of universities such as Columbia, if they do not comply with government authorities.
After his involvement with the group ‘Columbia University Apartheid Divest’ brought him under the government scanner, President Trump took to social media platform Truth Social to announce that Khalil's arrest was only “the first of many.”
One of Khalil's attorneys, Ramie Kaseem, commented on the US government's grounds for removal, stating that they were “patently weak and pretextual,”, as quoted by the New York Times.
"That the government scrambled to add them at the 11th hour only highlights how its motivation from the start was to retaliate against Mr. Khalil for his protected speech in support of Palestinian rights and lives," Kassem said, as reported by the New York Times.
While Khalil is an Algerian citizen, native to Syria, he has been in the US since 2022 on a student visa and became a permanent resident in 2024. He is also married to an American citizen.
The case has drawn attention to the right to free speech, with many believing that Khalil was targeted for disagreeing with US policy on Israel, which is one of the countries biggest allies.
