Judge sides with Trump DOJ to keep Mahmoud Khalil in detention
Judge sides with Trump DOJ to keep Mahmoud Khalil in detention
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Supporters protest for Mahmoud Khalil's release from ICE detention
Supporters demanded the release of Mahmoud Khalil while he attended a hearing at the LaSalle Immigration Court in Jena, Louisiana.
A federal judge ruled the Trump administration could keep Mahmoud Khalil in custody under a secondary legal argument.
On June 13, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz, of New Jersey, rejected the 30-year-old Palestinian Columbia University graduate's request to be released after three months in immigration detention.
On June 11, Farbiarz initially ruled Khalil couldn't be detained by Secretary of State Marco Rubio's determination that he threatened American foreign policy interests. But Farbiarz left open other options for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold Khalil.
Ahead of a court-ordered deadline to respond on June 13, Justice Department lawyers argued Khalil could be held for misrepresenting information on his permanent residency application, under a federal immigration statute lawyers have presented to the court.
"Khalil is now detained based on that other charge of removability," Justice Department lawyers wrote in a June 13 letter submitted to court. "Detaining Khalil based on that other ground of removal is lawful."
They said Khalil now has options to seek his release with the charge pending.
Farbiarz sided with that assessment and said the secondary charge hasn't been blocked by the court.
He said, "a number of avenues are now available to" Khalil, "including a bail application to the immigration judge presiding over the immigration case."
Khalil's lawyer, Amy Greer, said that the government was using 'cruel, transparent delay tactics' to keep him away from his wife and newborn son on their first Father's Day, on June 15.
'Instead of celebrating together, he is languishing in ICE detention as punishment for his advocacy on behalf of his fellow Palestinians,' Greer said in a statement.
The Justice Department had no comment beyond the filings, an agency spokesperson said in an email.
The government had until June 13 to appeal the judge's initial ruling. Justice Department lawyers pushed Khalil to follow the administrative actions instead of filing in federal court.
"These administrative processes are the proper avenues for Khalil to seek release, not having a federal district court hold that the government cannot detain Khalil on a charge that the Court never found to be unlawful," the government lawyers said in the letter.
In his original June 11 ruling, Farbiarz Khalil's request to temporarily block federal officials from deporting him under Rubio's determination. On June 13, he extended the government's time to respond to appeal his decision. Justice Department lawyers instead brought up the second argument.
Khalil's legal team sent a letter to Farbiarz the morning of June 13, requesting that the client be freed since the appeal from the government did not meet the morning deadline.
Khalil has been held in an immigration detention center in Louisiana since March. His lawyers have fought for his release to be with his wife and newborn son, Deen.
However, a June 12 email sent to Khalil's lawyers by Brian Acuna, director of the New Orleans ICE Field Office, stated that he had "no information [that] your client will be released or a time for that," court records showed. His lawyers instead needed to contact ICE's Office of Chief Counsel on that matter, the email said.
Immigration agents arrested Khalil, a green card holder married to an American citizen, on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment building in Manhattan.
A Palestinian born in Syria, Khalil was a spokesman and negotiator for pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia. Khalil was not accused of any crime.
Noncitizens can be deported if the Secretary of State finds that their presence threatens U.S. foreign policy interests, even if their beliefs, statements or associations are "otherwise lawful," the Trump administration argued. They cited a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 as the basis.
Farbiarz ruled against the Secretary of State's determination and said the secondary argument — that he omitted information on his application to enter the country — "almost surely flows" from Rubio's determination.
On June 13, Farbiarz said Khalil hadn't given factual evidence as to why it could be unlawful to detain him on the secondary charge.
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Atlantic
33 minutes ago
- Atlantic
The Shame of Trump's Parade
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Today's events bring us one step closer to this disaster. I have seen the politicization of the military firsthand. Last month, I resigned my tenured position as a philosophy professor at West Point in protest of the dramatic changes the Trump administration is making to academic programs at military-service academies. Following an executive order from January, the Department of Defense banned most discussions of race and gender in the classroom. West Point applied this standard to faculty scholarship as well. As a result, my research agenda—I study the relationship between masculinity and war, among other things—was effectively off limits. I consider what the Trump administration is doing to the military-service academies as a profound violation of the military's political neutrality. That destructive ethos is the same one apparent in the parade scheduled for today. Before Trump was reelected, the Army had planned significant celebrations across the country to mark this day, including the release of a commemorative postage stamp and a visit to the International Space Station by an Army astronaut. But according to The New York Times, arrangements for today's D.C. event, unlike the other plans, began only this year. The day is scheduled to begin with a variety of family-friendly concerts, a meet and greet with NFL players, and military-fitness competitions, all on the National Mall. If all goes to plan, the celebrations will culminate with what organizers are calling a 'grand military parade' that starts near the Pentagon, crosses the Potomac River, and ends near the White House. The parade is anticipated to involve 6,700 active-duty soldiers and a massive display of Army equipment: dozens of M1A1 Abrams tanks and Stryker armored personnel carriers, along with more than 100 other land vehicles, 50 helicopters, and a B-25 bomber. 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She added, 'It is really a gift, and we want to be sure that we celebrate in a manner that is fitting, not just of this extraordinary president but of our extraordinary country.' She also expressed hope that the crowd would serenade the president with 'Happy Birthday.' Clearly, Trump isn't merely the guest of honor; he is the reason for the party. During his first administration, members of Trump's own Cabinet often thwarted his efforts to corrupt the Pentagon. This time, Trump has appointed a secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who is willing to tear down the boundaries separating politics and the management of national defense. Trump and Hegseth claim to be purging the military of politicization instilled by previous administrations and resetting the DOD around the nonpartisan matter of readiness for war. But in reality, they have used this rationale as a cover to insert an unprecedented level of political partisanship into the military. Other events in recent months have pointed in this same direction. For instance, in February, the administration fired the top lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The only meaningful justification given for the move was Hegseth's claim that the fired lawyers might be roadblocks to the president's agenda—a frightening admission. In January, the administration banned transgender people from serving in the military, not because they allegedly pose a threat to unit cohesion or because their medical treatment is unusually expensive, but because they are supposedly bad people ('not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member'). At present, transgender soldiers who have met all performance standards are being discharged simply because of the administration's bigotry against them. The administration has also inserted its politics into all the military-service academies—the reason I left West Point last month. Trump and Hegseth have denied the validity of ideas that are taken seriously in a variety of disciplines and banned them from the classroom, including, as I noted above, matters pertaining to race and gender. Books and other works, most of which are by women and people of color, have been removed from the curriculum. The academic programs of the service academies are now structured around the Trump administration's ideological worldview. Faculty and cadets wonder if they are allowed to entertain perspectives inconsistent with the administration's politics. In May, Hegseth led an evangelical prayer service in the Pentagon's auditorium. Standing at a lectern with the Department of Defense seal, Hegseth led the audience in prayer to 'our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.' The main speaker at this service was Hegseth's pastor, Brooks Potteiger, of the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. This church restricts all leadership positions to men, declares homosexuality immoral, and asserts that women should not serve in combat. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a secretary of defense acknowledging his religious faith. What's objectionable is the use of his authority to push his personal religious views on subordinates, especially as the director of a major institution of the secular state. The president now routinely speaks to uniformed service members in his red MAGA hat, using his trademark rhetoric centering himself and belittling, even demonizing, his critics. He openly suggests a special alliance between him and the military. At Fort Bragg on Tuesday, for instance, Trump encouraged uniformed soldiers to cheer his political agenda and boo his enemies. This is all extremely dangerous. Keeping the military a politically neutral servant of the constitutional order, not of the president or his political ideology, is vital to ensuring the security of civil society. 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San Francisco Chronicle
37 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Donald Trump is losing. Here's how California can keep the pressure on
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As Michael Ansara, who as a student helped organize the March on Washington in 1965, concluded in a recent op-ed: Protesting against Trump is good. Organizing against him is better.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
BROADCAST BIAS: Media's LA riot coverage relies on a sneaky trick to look less one-sided
Democrats and their publicity partners at the broadcast TV networks have often preached about how President Donald Trump's actions – like his pardons – are an affront to the "rule of law" in America. But when it comes to Trump's attempt at mass deportations, the media-Democrat alliance lines up fiercely against any attempt to remove immigrants who have ignored the rule of law. Riots broke out on June 6 after several immigration raids in the Los Angeles area by U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement enraged the left, as so-called "peaceful protesters" tried to block entrances and exits for the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building downtown, where detainees were being processed. In a legal sense, it is not merely a "protest" to obstruct law enforcement. It's a crime. It is not "protest" to throw bricks at ICE agents or police, or set cars on fire. But the broadcast coverage of this unrest sounded disturbingly like the excuse-making for the George Floyd riots of 2020, when violent mobs were described as a "racial reckoning." Once again, the TV networks used the mantra that the protests are "mostly peaceful," like it was a tiny sideshow, and Trump calling out the National Guard to quell the violence was treated as a provocation that worsened the crisis. The original, radical "idealism" of these protests – that ICE shouldn't be deporting anyone, like deportations were tyrannical – served as the rhetorical underpinning of the biased coverage. Any idealism from the Republican side – favoring that "rule of law" and for protecting law enforcement personnel from violent attacks – was dismissed as Trumpian blather. By Monday morning, the network morning shows kicked into anti-Trump gear. ABC "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos warned viewers that Trump's ordering in the National Guard "is the first time since 1965 that a president's ordered troops in over the objections of the governor," and "California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the action as inflammatory, called on the administration to rescind it, said they were manufacturing a crisis." When Democrats can't keep control of their cities, pointing it out is "manufacturing a crisis." It's like Stephanopoulos never stopped being a Democrat press spokesman. It's subtle wordplay, but the networks have a sneaky habit of not putting the party label on Trump's Democrat opponents. One might say their party should be obvious from their opposition, but in a setting of violent action, the avoidance of party labels was far too common, especially at ABC. On Wednesday night, June 11's "World News Tonight," reporter Matt Gutman announced "in an emotional press conference, 37 mayors coming together" against Trump, no party labels needed. Arturo Flores, the mayor Huntington Park, was described as "a combat veteran, appealing to the military." Flores bizarrely argued about illegal immigrants: "These are Americans." As a legal matter, that's untrue, but ABC put that concept on screen: "Officials: 'Remember, You Are Dealing With Americans." That's just "Officials," no party ID needed. Flores also lit into Trump as "a dictator" and "a tyrant." Nobody ever fact-checks politicians who call Trump a dictator. Gutman then added Newsom attacking Trump for calling out the National Gard, without the party label. On Thursday night, ABC evening anchor David Muir repeated the tactic. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was abruptly interrupted at a press conference by "California Senator Alex Padilla," and he was forced to the ground and handcuffed. This transparently partisan stunt was treated as deadly serious, complete with a Padilla soundbite full of quavering moral outrage about how Latino farm hands and cooks are treated by the feds, with no mention of party. It's subtle wordplay, but the networks have a sneaky habit of not putting the party label on Trump's Democrat opponents. Late in that Thursday story, ABC reporter Matt Rivers did highlight the party when "Democratic Governors" lectured House Republicans at a hearing about their laxity on illegal immigration. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told Viewers that Trump engaged in a "flagrant abuse of power." ABC did not show Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz being pressed in that hearing about his smears in a recent commencement speech where he accused ICE agents of being "Trump's modern-day Gestapo." Nobody "fact checks" that, and no Republican question or concern from that hearing was mentioned by ABC. This is why Republicans and independent voters are shunning ABC, CBS and NBC as talking-point assembly lines for the Democrats.
