DOJ Accuses Mahmoud Khalil of Failing to Disclose Info on Green Card Application
The Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a March 23 filing that Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of Columbia University who is being detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, failed to disclose his association with a couple of organizations in his green card application.
Khalil, who was a negotiator for anti-Israel protesters involved with the encampment last spring, didn’t put in his green card application that he had previously worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the Syrian office of the British embassy in Beirut, the DOJ alleged. A spokesperson for UNRWA told CNN that Khalil worked as a paid intern for the organization.
“Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations … It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech,” the DOJ wrote in its filing.
Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s attorneys, told Axios that the latest filing shows “that the government has no case whatsoever on this bogus charge that his presence in the U.S. would have adverse foreign policy consequences” and the administration’s efforts to deport Khalil are “purely about First Amendment protected activity and speech.”
ICE Tells Cornell Student Involved in Anti-Israel Protests to Surrender
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Momodou Taal, a Cornell University student who was reportedly involved in anti-Israel protests on campus, to surrender to the agency’s custody.
CNN reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent an email to Taal’s attorneys on March 21: “ICE invites Mr. Taal and his counsel to appear in-person at the (Homeland Security Investigations) Office in Syracuse at a mutually agreeable time for personal service of the (Notice to Appear) and for Mr. Taal to surrender to ICE custody.” Taal is an Africana Studies doctoral student and a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and The Gambia. Taal’s attorneys are asking a federal judge to bar the government from deporting him and that “he lives in constant fear that he may be arrested by immigration officials or police as a result of his speech.”
On the day of the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, Taal had posted “Glory to the resistance!” on X as well as “colonised peoples have the right to resist by any means necessary,” according to CNN. Taal was suspended twice by the university in 2024 after he allegedly took part in “disruptive protest activities,” reported CNN.
Columbia Agrees to Trump Admin’s Demands
Columbia University announced on March 21 that it had agreed to the Trump administration’s demands needed to restore the $400 million that the administration had frozen.
The demands that the university agreed to included banning masks to conceal identities (health or religious reasons exempt), adopting a formal definition of antisemitism, hiring 36 special officers who can remove individuals from campus or arrest them, clarifying time, place and manner restrictions, and appointing faculty members with joint positions at the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the economics and political science departments as well as the School of International Affairs. Agreeing to the demands are a “precondition” to begin talks to unfreeze the $400 million, according to Fox News.
However, according to a March 24 Wall Street Journal report, University Interim President Katrina Armstrong “downplayed” the agreement in her talks with faculty members and denied that the university will be implementing a mask ban. A university spokesperson told The New York Post, “Individuals participating in demonstrations, including those who wear face masks or face coverings, must present their university ID when asked by a university official. Face coverings used to conceal one’s identity while violating university rules, policies or the law are not allowed on campus.”
Armstrong said in a statement on March 25 that she is committed “to seeing these changes implemented” and that “any suggestion that these measures are illusory, or lack my personal support, is unequivocally false. These changes are real, and they are right for Columbia.”
Pitt Suspends SJP Chapter
The University of Pittsburgh temporarily suspended its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter on March 19.
Associate Director of Student Conduct Jamey Mentzer wrote in a letter to the group that SJP members had “improperly engaged in communications” with members of the Conduct Hearing Board during a February hearing, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. The hearing was over SJP’s “liberation study group” held in December that university officials believe violated school policy. “As set forth in the code, interference with the conduct process, which includes any action designed or with the potential to influence or intimidate any person who is participating in a student conduct proceeding, constitutes a serious violation,” Mentzer wrote to the SJP chapter.
The SJP chapter held a march on campus on March 22 in defiance of the suspension, according to CBS News.
