Judge allows the expulsion of Colombia Mahmoud Khalil

A US judge has ruled the government can expel Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of Columbia University arrested last month by immigration officers.

Mr Khalil has been held in a detention center in Louisiana since March 8, when American immigration officers told him he was being interned to participate in protests in the Gaza war campus.

The pro-Palestinian activist is a permanent US legal resident and has not been charged with a crime. The government is seeking to remove it under an immigration law of the Cold War era.

In a letter written by the building, Mr. Khalil said that “his arrest was a direct consequence” of speaking to Palestine.

The judge said that the Trump administration was allowed to move forward with its attempt to expel Mr. Khalil because the argument he presents “unfavorable foreign policy consequences” for the US is “reasonable”.

The judge gave Khalil’s lawyers until April 23 to appeal against his expulsion to Algeria or Syria.

“I would like to quote what you said last time there is nothing that is more important to this court than rights of the right process and fundamental justice,” Mr. Khalil in court.

“Clearly what we have seen today, none of these principles was present today or in this whole process,” he said. “That’s exactly why the Trump administration sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family.”