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ICE agents did not have a warrant when they detained Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, court documents have said.
Khalil, 30, was stripped of his green card and arrested in front of his then-eight-month-pregnant wife in New York City on March 8. He was transferred to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, almost 1,300 miles away. There have been international calls for his release since then, with Khalil even denied the right to attend the birth of his child on April 21.
But amid ongoing backlash the Department of Homeland Security is now arguing a warrant was not needed before the arrest, alleging Khalil was a “flight risk” in claims his supporters branded ‘absurd’.
“Khalil was encountered by ICE officers and identified as a removable alien,” a DHS spokesperson said. “When he tried to walk away, he was arrested.
“An administrative arrest warrant was executed at the time of his booking, as is the custom. Khalil is arguing in immigration court that an arrest warrant is necessary prior to the arrest of a removable alien. There's no legal basis for that position.”
Khalil’s arrest in March was prompted by his involvement in a series of protests against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. On the night of his arrest, ICE agents said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa.
In a document filed in Newark federal court, a lawyer for the DHS said agents conducting surveillance of Khalil were notified he could be removed from the country ‘because his presence or activities would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States’.
As Khalil walked on a sidewalk with his wife, a Homeland Security Investigations agent approached and identified himself, according to the court filing. After his wife went to retrieve documents showing Khalil had lawful residence status, the agent asked him to cooperate while they tried to verify his identity, but Khalil “stated that he would not cooperate and that he was going to leave the scene,” the DHS lawyer wrote.
The Homeland Security supervisory agent at that point “believed there was a flight risk and arrest was necessary,” he said.
Khalil’s legal team and advocacy groups have trashed the suggestion he was trying to flee, and argue the arrest was illegal.
“In a DHS filing in an immigration court this week, we learned for the first time that the DHS agents who arrested Mahmoud lied to him: they wrote in their arrest report that the agents told [Khalil] that they had an arrest warrant, but DHS has now admitted in their filing that that was a lie and that there was no warrant at all at the time of the arrest,” Khalil’s attorneys wrote in a statement for the Center for Constitutional Rights.
“The government's admission is astounding, and it is completely outrageous that they tried to assert to the immigration judge – and the world – in their initial filing of the arrest report that there was an arrest warrant when there was none. This is egregious conduct by DHS that should require under the law termination of these proceedings, and we hope that the immigration court will so rule.”
Samah Sisay, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights added: “ICE has admitted it detained Mahmoud illegally and without a warrant– to justify it, they are now flat out lying with an absurd claim that he tried to flee. At every step of the way, the Trump administration has flouted the law.”
Khalil’s legal team is lobbying for a preliminary injunction to secure his immediate release from custody and to allow him to reunite with his family while his immigration case proceeds.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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