Campus Protest Crackdowns

Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student and U.S. legal permanent resident facing deportation, have asked 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Emil Bove to recuse himself from any further role in Khalil’s case because of Bove’s prior work directing Trump‑era immigration enforcement against student protesters. In a filing this week, they urged the full 3rd Circuit—minus Bove—to rehear and overturn a January 2‑1 panel ruling that said a New Jersey district judge lacked jurisdiction to block Khalil’s detention and removal, forcing his challenge back into the immigration‑court system without resolving whether the government’s actions violate the Constitution. Khalil’s attorneys argue that as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, Bove oversaw immigration investigations and decisions involving campus protests, including at Columbia, creating at least an appearance of conflict that should bar him from judging a case rooted in those same enforcement efforts. The Justice Department, which accuses Khalil of leading activities “aligned to Hamas” and of omissions on his green‑card paperwork but has not charged him criminally or produced public evidence backing the Hamas claim, told the court it sees no basis for recusal but will defer to Bove, who alone decides whether to step aside. Khalil, who was born in Syria to a Palestinian family and holds Algerian citizenship, remains in the U.S. with his American‑citizen wife and young son after spending three months in a Louisiana immigration jail—detention that advocates and many online critics see as part of a broader Trump‑era campaign to use immigration law to punish campus dissent over Israel and Gaza.