SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
One year ago, federal immigration officers detained a Columbia University graduate student who served as negotiator with university officials during pro-Palestinian protests that rocked the campus. His detention marked the start of a nationwide strategy to deport noncitizens who speak out about Israel's war in Gaza. The case now sits at the vanguard of a legal battle over immigrants' due process and civil rights. NPR's Ximena Bustillo and Carrie Johnson report.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: On March 8, 2025, men in plain clothes followed Mahmoud Khalil into the lobby of his New York apartment building.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTFIED IMMIGRATION OFFICER: You're under arrest. So turn around.
MAHMOUD KHALIL: I can't see it.
UNIDENTFIED IMMIGRATION OFFICER: Turn around. Turn around. Turn around. Turn around.
NOOR ABDALLA: OK. Let's - let's not...
UNIDENTFIED IMMIGRATION OFFICER: Stop resisting. Stop resisting.
ABDALLA: OK. OK. He's not resisting. He's giving me his phone.
UNIDENTFIED IMMIGRATION OFFICER: All right.
JOHNSON: Khalil remembers they wouldn't show him a warrant, and they didn't explain why they wanted to take him away.
KHALIL: So it felt absolutely like kidnapping - that I did not know who exactly these people were, especially without a warrant, without any identification.
JOHNSON: His wife, a U.S. citizen who was eight months pregnant, started filming the incident. Then she ran upstairs to get his green card and other papers. The immigration officers were unmoved. They walked him into an unmarked car parked across the street.
KHALIL: When this happened, like, in my head, I was so calm because I knew that maybe an hour or two hours I would be out after they verify the facts.
JOHNSON: Instead, Khalil spent 104 days in detention, mostly in Louisiana, far from home, until his attorneys could win his release. It's a legal odyssey that's still unfolding.
KHALIL: One year after my arrest, the government did not charge me with any crimes or hasn't actually presented any evidence that I committed any wrongdoings whatsoever.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Khalil's case captured the attention of the White House. Here's President Trump speaking to reporters in March of last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think that guy - we ought to get him. I heard his statements, too. They were pretty bad. And I think we ought to get him the hell out of the country.
BUSTILLO: At first, the administration relied on a legal justification from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio deployed a rarely used statute to declare that Khalil's presence in the U.S. had potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. Khalil says the administration wanted to make an example out of him because of his vocal support for Gaza.
KHALIL: I was absolutely targeted for what I represent, which is a student movement that erupted against the U.S. support to Israel.
BUSTILLO: His lawyer, Amy Greer, says Congress designed that old law from 1952 to cover powerful political figures whose travel to the U.S. could actually implicate foreign policy.
AMY GREER: There are procedures that the secretary of state is supposed to follow in order to use this statute against a person. We have never received any evidence that procedure was followed.
BUSTILLO: A federal judge in New Jersey sided with Khalil, saying Secretary Rubio's use of this statute against Khalil for his protected political speech was likely unconstitutional. Immigration lawyer Eric Lee is watching Khalil's case, which he says could set a precedent for noncitizens' rights to free speech.
ERIC LEE: The First Amendment is not a dial. It's either on or it's off.
BUSTILLO: Lee has his own clients who have been in detention for months on similar grounds.
LEE: The First Amendment is already under threat or fatally undermined once we accept a situation where the rights of any immigrants to speak are being restricted because the First Amendment applies to all the people in this country.
JOHNSON: Nine days after immigration officers came for Khalil and after Khalil filed a legal challenge, the Trump administration made a new argument. They say Khalil made misrepresentations on his green card, that he left out information about some work he did for the British embassy and the U.N. Agency for Palestine Refugees. Khalil and his lawyer say those are baseless claims, that his U.N. work was an internship supervised by his university.
KHALIL: They chose immigration proceedings against me rather than any other avenue because basically, by weaponizing immigration, they can deny me due process.
JOHNSON: His cases are playing out in both federal court and the immigration court system. His legal troubles are so complex that he's got more than 20 lawyers to navigate them. In January, the 3rd Circuit Federal Appeals Court ruled Khalil could not go to the federal courts to challenge his detention until his immigration proceedings end. A ruling this year could have implications far beyond Khalil. Steve Vladeck's a law professor at Georgetown University.
STEVE VLADECK: We have a president who's been committed quite publicly to destroying any vestige of independence within the immigration court system and to firing immigration judges who don't do his bidding.
BUSTILLO: If the 3rd Circuit ruling stands, that means it could take years for immigrants' cases to work their way through immigration courts and then for independent federal judges to consider important constitutional questions like freedom of speech and government retaliation. Unlike many people in the immigration system, Khalil is reunited with his family, at least for now. But life is different. He wears a baseball cap to cover his face. He looks behind his shoulder walking down the street. He doesn't go out alone with his young son for fear that he could be detained again.
KHALIL: Very hurtful - the fact that you cannot go with your kid to the park alone just to walk.
BUSTILLO: His multiple legal battles have taken over his day to day as he awaits to hear whether he will be deported far away from his family.
KHALIL: This case has been my full-time job.
JOHNSON: And that job is far from over. Khalil's son turns 1 in April, and a celebration to mark the end of Ramadan will come in mid-March. Those moments weigh on his mind.
KHALIL: That's one of my biggest fears, to be honest, now - that I will not be here for his first birthday or even for the first Eid together - because these are important milestones.
JOHNSON: Carrie Johnson.
BUSTILLO: Ximena Bustillo, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
