The Trump administration said it plans to rearrest Mahmoud Khalil, with the goal of deporting the Columbia University activist of Palestinian descent to Algeria — a move that Khalil’s lawyers panned Thursday as illegal.
Khalil was being held in Louisiana until a federal judge ordered him released last June. But last week, an appeals court dealt a major blow to Khalil’s legal challenge to his detention, reversing the lower court order, 2-1, and paving the way for him to be arrested again.
“It looks like he’ll go to Algeria. That’s what the thought is right now,” Tricia McLaughlin, a top Department of Homeland Security official, told NewsNation on Wednesday night. Khalil lived in Algeria, where he has citizenship, as a Syrian refugee, before relocating to the United States for his studies.
“It’s a reminder for those who are in this country on a visa or on a green card, you’re a guest in this country. Act like it,” added McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for public affairs.
The plan also drew criticism from New York City Mayor Mamdani. Asked if he was in touch with President Trump directly about Khalil’s case, the mayor said he would make clear “to everyone” that efforts to deport the activist were part of a broader attack on free speech.
“Mahmoud Khalil is a New Yorker. He should remain in New York,” Mamdani said at an unrelated press conference Thursday. Khalil publicly supported Mamdani’s bid for mayor and attended his inauguration.
“We have seen this attack on him is part of a larger attack on the freedom of speech that is especially pronounced when it comes to the use of that speech to stand up for Palestinian human rights, and I will make that clear to everyone,” Mamdani said.
Khalil’s lawyers have questioned the legality of rearresting him before last week’s decision could be reviewed. The Daily News has reached out to his legal team for clarity.
“Mahmoud cannot be legally detained or deported now because his appeals process has not concluded,” they wrote in a statement Thursday to the Columbia Spectator. “But it’s no surprise to hear the government reiterate what has always been its ultimate goal: to impose the extreme punishment of deportation on Mahmoud for his pro-Palestinian speech.”
Khalil, who served as a negotiator between Columbia protesters and the school administration in spring 2024, became the public face of Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian advocacy after federal officials detained him in March. He is a green card holder and married to an American citizen, who recently gave birth in the U.S. to their first child.
The Trump administration has argued in court that Khalil’s presence in the United States is a threat to foreign policy interests, while accusing him in public of antisemitism and sympathies for Hamas. Khalil has denied the allegations and spoken out against antisemitism, including before his arrest.
