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Fifth Column

US Judge orders Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from detention

2025-06-21

[IsraelTimes] Khalil was the first arrest under Trump’s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel

A federal judge on Friday ordered the US government to free former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil

…at age 30 the Damascus-born Palestinian (with dual Algerian citizenship through his mother, whose family were revolutionaries back home) got a Masters in Paleo Protest from Columbia, applying his training as Apartheid Divest’s frontman supporting Hamas since 10/8/2023, which overlapped his work as a UNWRA political affairs officer. Since his arrest by ICE he’s been represented by 19 attorneys, including CUNY law prof Ramzi Kassem, himself a Paleo student activist at Columbia back in the day, and the ACLU. Mr. Khalil worked his way through college in Beirut as a popular, MI-6 vetted local staffer at the British embassy leading soft power projects, on one of which he worked with his future wife — Leb-American dentist Noor Abdalla, who interestingly is a hijabi, suggesting either Muslim Brotherhood or Hezbollah connections. No doubt it was for her sake he went to Columbia instead of Oxford…

from the immigration detention center where he has been held since early March while the Trump administration sought to deport him over his role in pro-Paleostinian, anti-Israel protests.

US District Judge Michael Farbiarz announced the decision from the bench in New Jersey, responding to a request from Khalil’s lawyers to free him on bail or, at the very least, move him from a Louisiana jail to New Jersey so he can be closer to his wife and newborn son.

A mere federal district judge? This will need to go through the appeals court, then the US Supreme Court before the ruling is final. And then, either Mr. Khalil’s lawyers will file another lawsuit trying a different argument orthe US Justice Department will ditto. Either way, Mr. Khalil probably isn’t going anywhere until the last idea has been tried, at which point he will be sent

Khalil was the first arrest under US President Donald Trump
...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down...
’s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, launched after the October 7, 2023, Hamas
Hamas

..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
massacre.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration...
has said Khalil must be expelled from the country because his continued presence could harm American foreign policy.

Farbiarz had ruled earlier that the government can’t continue to hold Khalil on those grounds, but the government argued the legal US resident was instead being held based on allegations that he lied on his green card application. Khalil disputes the accusations that he wasn’t forthcoming on the application.

Khalil was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan over his participation in pro-Paleostinian demonstrations. His lawyers say the Trump administration is simply trying to crack down on free speech.

Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The international affairs graduate student served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists. He wasn’t among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics.

The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country, as it considers their views antisemitic.

Posted by:trailing wife

#1 Pro-Palestinian Protest Leader Released From US Custody

Posted by: Grom the Affective 2025-06-21 01:22

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