By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Detained pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil asked a federal court on Thursday to block Columbia University from sharing student disciplinary records from campus protests with a Republican-led U.S.
House of Representatives committee.
Separately, Khalil’s lawyers have asked a federal judge to release him from immigration detention in Louisiana, arguing that Republican President Donald Trump’s administration targeted him for arrest and deportation because of his advocacy in violation of the U.S.
Constitution’s First Amendment protections for freedom of speech. Khalil, who has lawful permanent resident status in the United States, was arrested last Saturday in New York City.
Khalil’s case has become a flashpoint for Trump’s pledge to deport some activists who participated in the wave of protests on U.S.
college campuses against Israel’s military assault on Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the militant group Hamas.
Trump’s administration has said pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, including at Columbia, have included support for Hamas and antisemitic harassment of Jewish students.
The administration last week said it canceled grants and contracts worth about $400 million to Columbia because of what it describes as antisemitic harassment on and near the school’s campus.
Student protest organizers have said criticism of Israel and its actions is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
In a lawsuit filed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court, Khalil and seven Columbia students sought to prevent the university from complying with a request from the House education and workforce committee for student disciplinary records stemming from protest-related incidents.
The other seven students remained anonymous in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs said the committee’s request violated the First Amendment and their privacy rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a U.S.
law that governs how universities handle student information.
“Entities like the university feel pressure to cooperate with the government in its efforts to chill and punish protected speech,” the lawsuit stated.
Columbia declined to comment.
A spokesperson for the committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Syrian native of Palestinian descent, Khalil, 30, entered the United States on a student visa in 2022 to pursue a public administration degree at Columbia.
He became a prominent member of Columbia’s protest movement, married his American citizen wife in 2023, and last year secured lawful permanent residency, making him a “green card” holder.
Demonstrators on the streets of New York City, rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have called Khalil’s arrest political repression by the Trump administration.
At least 150 protesters poured into the lobby of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan on Thursday, carrying signs saying: “FREE MAHMOUD FREE PALESTINE.”
‘FOREIGN POLICY CONSEQUENCES’
Khalil is separately challenging the legality of his arrest by federal immigration agents outside his university residence in Upper Manhattan.
Khalil has not been charged with a crime.
Trump’s administration has urged a judge to dismiss Khalil’s challenge to his immigration arrest, or alternatively move the case out of New York.
In a court filing shortly before midnight on Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers told U.S.
District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan that the U.S. government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
Under a provision of the U.S.
Immigration and Nationality Act, a law passed in 1952, any immigrants may be deported if the secretary of state deems their presence in the country potentially adverse to American foreign policy. Legal experts have said that provision is rarely invoked, and Khalil’s lawyers have said it was not intended to silence dissent.
The Justice Department did not elaborate in its filing on how Khalil could harm U.S.
foreign policy objectives. Trump and officials in his administration have, without presenting evidence, accused Khalil of supporting Hamas.
The Justice Department lawyers also said Furman should not have jurisdiction over the case because Khalil was transferred to an immigration detention facility in New Jersey before his lawyers filed their bid for his release, known as a habeas corpus petition, early on Sunday morning.
He was later moved to Louisiana.
Khalil’s lawyers are due to respond to the Justice Department’s motion on Friday, and also are expected to file an updated habeas corpus petition by midnight on Thursday.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s attacks have killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and led to accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies. The assault internally displaced nearly Gaza’s entire population and caused a hunger crisis.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
