Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil ordered removed from US by appeals board

An immigration appeals board has issued a final deportation order against anti-Israel protester Mahmoud Khalil, advancing the Trump administration’s efforts to deport the Columbia University graduate, according to his legal team.

The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decided Thursday to deny Khalil’s request to dismiss the case, marking a significant development in the administration’s efforts to remove him from the United States.

Khalil, a 31-year-old legal permanent resident, has been at the center of a broader federal crackdown on noncitizens involved in anti-Israel campus protests linked to the Gaza war. He was the first person whose arrest was made public as part of the crackdown.

His legal team called the decision “baseless and politically motivated,” arguing that the government is retaliating against his speech and lacks evidence to support its case.

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Mahmoud Khalil speaks into a megaphone during a protest outside Columbia University in New York, March 9, 2026. (Selçuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“In all my decades as an immigration attorney, I have never seen such a baseless and politically motivated decision,” Khalil’s lead attorney, Marc Van Der Hout, said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “The BIA’s decision has absolutely no support on the record, it violates a federal court order, and we will fight it to the end.”

The Trump administration has maintained that Khalil’s protest activities were “aligned with Hamas,” a claim cited by the Department of Homeland Security and other officials, although authorities have not publicly detailed specific evidence linking him to the terrorist group.

Khalil has also denied allegations of anti-Semitism. Officials also cited a rare foreign policy provision of U.S. immigration law, sometimes called the “Rubio determination,” as well as alleged problems with his green card application.

Despite the ruling, Khalil’s lawyers say he cannot be deported while his other federal habeas case continues to play out in court.

A federal judge in New Jersey previously ruled that the government’s justification for detaining Khalil was likely unconstitutional and ordered his release.

After his arrest, Khalil spent 104 days in immigration detention, missing the birth of his first child before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release.

Khalil then suffered a setback in his federal trial when a U.S. appeals panel ruled that the New Jersey judge had exceeded his authority in ordering his release. In a 2-1 decision, the committee ruled that the case must go through the immigration court system before it can be challenged in federal court.

His lawyers are now asking the entire appeals panel to reconsider that decision and have asked one of the judges to step aside because of his previous role as a Justice Department official involved in the investigation of the student protesters.

Khalil has denied any wrongdoing and said the affair was an attempt to silence him.

“I am not surprised by this biased and politically motivated decision by the Immigration Appeals Board. I have committed no crime. I have not broken any laws. The only thing I am guilty of is speaking out against the genocide in Palestine – and this administration has used the immigration system as a weapon to punish me,” Khalil said in a statement released by the ACLU.

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Anti-Israel students occupy the center lawn of Columbia University in New York, April 21, 2024. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

“My family is here. My life is here. I reject any attempt to intimidate me from my home based on lies and ideological attacks,” he said. “This isn’t justice. This is just another attempt at retaliation against me.”

Khalil, a prominent organizer of anti-Israel protests at Columbia University in 2024 and whom the Trump administration seeks to expel, was initially arrested in 2025 in his university apartment in New York.

Homeland Security Investigations, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told him at the time that they were revoking his green card, according to his attorney, Amy Greer. He was then transferred to a detention center in Louisiana.

Khalil played a major role in the anti-Israel protests that rocked Columbia University in 2024 and met with school officials on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student groups pushing the university to divest from Israel. He completed the requirements for a master’s degree from Columbia in late 2024.

Born in Syria, he is the grandson of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland, his lawyers said in a court filing. His wife, an American citizen, gave birth to the couple’s child while he was in custody.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously defended the Trump administration’s actions following Khalil’s arrest in March, saying he allegedly distributed pro-Hamas propaganda leaflets on campus.

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Pro-Hamas activist and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, center, speaks after his release from federal immigration detention in Jena, La., Friday, June 20, 2025. (Kat Ramirez for Fox News Digital)

“This administration is not going to tolerate individuals who have the privilege of studying in our country and then side with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans,” Leavitt told reporters at a White House press briefing at the time, noting that on his desk were the “pro-Hamas propaganda flyers with the Hamas logo” that Khalil allegedly distributed.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy toward terrorists, period,” she said.

Fox News Digital has contacted the Justice Department for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.