A judge in former Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil’s case ruled against him Friday, finding he is eligible for deportation while giving his legal team a little less than two weeks to respond.
Jamee Comans, an immigration judge in Louisiana, found the government’s case is “facially reasonable.” She gave his team until April 23 to file its response.
The government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable,” Comans said, The Associated Press reported.
“I would like to quote what you said last time that there’s nothing that’s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness,” Khalil said at the end of the hearing. “Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process. This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family. I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months.”
The ruling comes after Khalil, the former lead negotiator of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia, has been in a Louisiana detention center for more than a month after he was arrested on March 8.