Columbia U. leader Mahmoud Khalil forgot to mention something important on his visa application as per feds

In a plot twist wilder than a Babylon Bee headline, the Trump administration has accused Mahmoud Khalil—a Columbia University student and anti-Israel, anti-Semitic protest ringleader—of hiding his gig with a United Nations Palestinian relief agency on his visa application. The feds say this sneaky omission is grounds to boot him out of the country faster than you can say "deportation hearing."

Khalil, a 30-year-old green card holder married to an American Muslima, got nabbed by ICE agents on March 8. 

In a court brief dated Sunday, the U.S. government laid out its case to keep Khalil behind bars while they figure out how to ship him back to wherever he came from. Spoiler: it’s complicated—he’s a Syrian native and Algerian citizen who rolled into the U.S. on a student visa in 2022 before angling for permanent residency in 2024.

The Department of Justice claims Khalil pulled a fast one when he applied to tweak his immigration status, conveniently forgetting to mention his "membership in certain organizations." Among those? The United Nation's Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which lost tens of millions in U.S. funding after Israel accused 12 of its members of joining Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack. 

The DOJ says Khalil was a political officer for UNRWA from June to November 2023 but kept it hush-hush on his paperwork. I wonder why.

But wait, there’s more! 

Khalil also allegedly failed to disclose he was working at the Syria office in the British embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, while applying for his visa. Oh, and he didn’t mention his membership in Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the Ivy League’s premier anti-Israel protest club. Sneaky, sneaky.

That's about as bad as Hunter Biden lying about not using drugs on his federal gun application.

The DOJ doubled down Sunday, arguing that Khalil’s alleged lies on his application are an "independent basis" for deportation, trumping any free speech whining he might try. 

"Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations and failed to disclose continuing employment by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut when he submitted his adjustment of status application," they said. "It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech."

"Thus, Khalil’s First Amendment allegations are a red herring, and there is an independent basis to justify removal sufficient to foreclose Khalil’s constitutional claim here," they added, probably while sipping coffee and high-fiving.

Khalil’s the first scalp in the Trump admin’s quest to revoke student visas for protest-happy foreigners, a crusade sparked by the chaos of anti-Israel campus meltdowns after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. 

During his campaign, Trump vowed to crack down, and he’s not messing around. "To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you," Trump declared in a White House fact sheet. "I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before."

So, will Khalil get the boot? Stay tuned—unless you’re him, in which case, maybe start packing.

"Thanks for reading! If you’d like to toss a coffee my way, check out my Buy Me A Coffee—means a lot!"

Tweet