NEW YORK: A US judge on Wednesday denied a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to dismiss detained Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to the legality of his arrest by immigration agents over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests but moved the case to New Jersey.
Manhattan-based US District Judge Jesse Furman agreed with the Justice Department that he did not have jurisdiction over the case.
Furman ordered the case moved to federal court in the state of New Jersey, where Khalil was held at the time his lawyers first challenged his arrest in New York. Furman did not rule on Khalil’s bid to be released on bail from detention.
Neither Khalil’s lawyers nor the Justice Department immediately responded to requests for comment.
Khalil, 30, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on March 8 outside his university residence in Manhattan. His lawyers have said he was targeted in retaliation for his role advocating for Palestinian rights, meaning the arrest violated free speech protections under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
The case has become a flashpoint for the Republican president’s pledge to deport some non-US citizens who took part in the protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza that swept American college campuses including Columbia after the October 2023 attack against Israelis by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Trump’s administration has said these protests included support for Hamas and antisemitic harassment of Jewish students. Student protest organizers have said criticism of Israel is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent, entered the United States on a student visa in 2022, married his American citizen wife in 2023, and secured lawful permanent residency — known as a green card — last year. Khalil became one of the most visible leaders of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protest movement while completing coursework for a master’s degree in public administration. He is due to graduate in May.
In ordering his removal, the administration has cited a little-used provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act allowing the deportation of any lawful permanent resident whose presence in the country the secretary of state has “reasonable grounds to believe” could harm US foreign policy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on March 16 that taking part in “pro-Hamas events” runs counter to US foreign policy.
Khalil’s lawyers have said their client has no ties to Hamas, and have said he acted as a “mediator and negotiator” during the protests.
They also have said the administration is unlawfully targeting non-US citizens for removal based on protected speech, and asked Furman to immediately release Khalil.
Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, is eight months pregnant with their first child and has not been able to travel to Louisiana to visit him.
Because the provision of the 1952 law used to justify Khalil’s deportation has been invoked so infrequently, it has been tested just once before, legal experts said.
The late federal Judge Maryanne Trump Barry — Trump’s older sister — found the provision unconstitutional in the 1990s in a case involving a former Mexican official wanted on criminal charges in his home country.
Barry said noncitizens in the United States legally could not be removed at the sole discretion of the secretary of state without a meaningful opportunity to be heard.
The administration of former President Bill Clinton appealed that ruling and it was reversed on a technicality that did not address the law’s constitutionality.
Judge denies Trump bid to toss Columbia student’s challenge to arrest
https://arab.news/j8yam
Judge denies Trump bid to toss Columbia student’s challenge to arrest
- Furman ordered the case moved to federal court in the state of New Jersey, where Khalil was held at the time his lawyers first challenged his arrest in New York
- Furman did not rule on Khalil’s bid to be released on bail from detention
No sign of progress on first day of Ukraine war talks in Geneva
- Two previous rounds of negotiation between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough
- Trump put pressure on Ukraine to make a deal, saying they “better come to the table, fast”
GENEVA: Ukrainian and Russian negotiators concluded the first of two days of US-mediated peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday, though neither side signalled they were any closer to ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Negotiations will resume on Wednesday.
The United States has been pushing for an end to the nearly four-year war, but has failed to broker a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv on the key issue of territory.
Two previous rounds of negotiation between the two sides in Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough.
The latest talks “were very tense,” said a source close to the Russian delegation.
“They lasted six hours. They have now concluded,” the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address he was ready “to move quickly toward a worthy agreement to end the war,” but questioned whether Russia was serious about peace.
“What do they want?” he added, accusing them of prioritising missile strikes over “real diplomacy.”
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The ensuing conflict has resulted in a tidal wave of destruction that has left entire cities in ruins, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead and forced millions of people to flee their homes.
- ‘Come to the table, fast’ -
Zelensky has repeatedly said his country is being asked to make disproportionate compromises compared to Russia.
US President Donald Trump on Monday put pressure on Ukraine to make a deal, saying they “better come to the table, fast.”
Russia occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine — including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014 — and areas that Moscow-backed separatists had taken prior to the 2022 invasion.
It is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal, and has threatened to take it by force if talks fail.
But Kyiv has rejected this deeply unpopular demand, which would be politically and militarily fraught, and signalled it will not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.
Russia has been slowly capturing territory across the sprawling front line for months.
But its war-time economic worries are mounting, with growth stagnating and a ballooning budget deficit as oil revenues — choked by sanctions — drop to a five-year low.
Ukrainian forces recently made their fastest gains in two-and-a-half years, recapturing 201 square kilometers (78 square miles) last week, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
That total includes areas Kyiv and military analysts say are controlled by Russia (72 square kilometers), as well as those claimed by Moscow’s army (129 square kilometers).
The counterattacks likely leveraged the disruption of Russian forces’ access to Starlink, the ISW said, after the satellite Internet firm’s boss, Elon Musk, announced “measures” to end Russia’s use of the technology.
- Breakthrough hopes low -
For the talks in Geneva, the Kremlin reinstated nationalist hawk and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky as its lead negotiator.
Ukrainian national security secretary Rustem Umerov was leading Kyiv’s side.
Hopes for a breakthrough are low.
Even before the talks were underway, Ukraine accused Russia of undermining peace efforts by launching 29 missiles and 396 drones in a series of attacks overnight that authorities said killed at least four people, wounded others and cut power to tens of thousands in southern Ukraine.
“The extent to which Russia disregards peace efforts: a massive missile and drone strike against Ukraine right before the next round of talks in Geneva,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media.
A Russian drone strike killed three staff of a power plant in the frontline town of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, according to energy minister Denys Shmygal.
Another person was killed in the northeastern Sumy region, local officials said.
Russia meanwhile accused Ukraine of launching more than 150 drones overnight, mainly over southern regions and the Crimean peninsula — occupied by the Kremlin in 2014.
An oil depot in southern Russia caught fire, according to officials.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists to expect no major news from the first day of talks.
