Trump administration can deport Mahmoud Khalil immigration judge rules

April 11, 2025 – NEW ORLEANS, LA – Federal Immigration judge James Comans ruled that former Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported.

This ruling in favor of the federal government allows Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) to move forward with its deportation case against the former student

Khalil is a foreign student at Columbia University. He is the leader of a student group that praised Hamas and distributed pamphlets associated with designated terrorist organizations.

Khalil organized the infamous Columbia University riots that effectively shut down the campus and terrorized Jewish students – or anybody who openly disagreed with his radical pro-Palestinian stance on the Israeli war with Hamas.

Khalil has been in a Louisiana detention center for over a month after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked Khalil's student visa.

Federal officials say that Khalil's conduct was entirely inappropriate and that leading antisemitic protests was not why he asked to come to the United States.

"ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it," President Trump said last month.