Columbia Protester Mahmoud Khalil Still Facing Deportation Fight a Year After ICE Detention

NPR details how Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student and lawful permanent U.S. resident arrested outside his New York apartment in March 2025 after leading pro‑Palestinian protests, remains in legal limbo one year later as the Trump administration continues trying to strip his green card. The piece reports that Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially used a rarely invoked statute to justify Khalil’s detention by declaring his presence a 'potentially serious' foreign‑policy problem, a move a federal judge in New Jersey has since said was likely unconstitutional because it penalized protected political speech. After that setback, the administration shifted tactics and is now pursuing Khalil for alleged misrepresentations on his immigration forms, while he and a team of more than 20 lawyers fight parallel cases in federal and immigration courts. Khalil says he has never been charged with any crime or shown evidence of wrongdoing, describes his life under constant surveillance fears, and argues he was targeted as part of a broader campaign to deport non‑citizens who protest U.S. support for Israel’s Gaza war. The case is being closely watched by civil‑rights and immigration advocates as an early test of how far the federal government can go in using detention and deportation powers against non‑citizens’ political speech on U.S. campuses.