Federal authorities arrested anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil without a warrant last month, lawyers for the Trump administration admitted Thursday – but argued officers didn’t have a choice.
The Columbia University graduate was taken into custody on March 8 after an immigration officer believed the former campus protester and legal permanent resident was a “flight risk,” according to papers filed Thursday by the Department of Justice in a bid to keep Khalil in custody.
“[Khalil] stated that he would not cooperate and that he was going to leave the scene,” the legal filing obtained by multiple outlets alleges.
“The [Homeland Security Investigations] agent believes there was a flight risk and arrest was necessary.”
Khalil was detained by US federal immigration agents in New York last month. REUTERSKhalil, 30, has been in custody in a Louisiana detention facility since his arrest and could face deportation over his involvement in campus protests against Israel amid the war in Gaza.
The HSI agent first approached Khalil and his then-pregnant wife, Noor Abdalla, at their apartment building in upper Manhattan, according to the legal filing.
As Abdalla went to get Khalil’s conditional residence card inside their apartment, the agent asked him to cooperate in the meantime — which Khalil allegedly said he would refuse to do, the DOJ lawyer wrote.
Once the Ivy League grad, who was born in Syria, was arrested in the building foyer and taken to a processing office in New York, he was served with a warrant, according to the DOJ.
But the American Civil Liberties Union pushed back against the government’s accusations and claimed officers told Khalil at the time he was arrested that they had a warrant.
Lawyer Marc Van Der Hout said in a press statement that Khalil’s legal team only learned this week that his arrest was warrantless.
“The government’s admission is astounding, and it is completely outrageous that they tried to assert to the immigration judge — and the world — in their initial filing of the arrest report that there was an arrest warrant when there was none,” he said.
Pro-Palestine protestors demonstrated as some chained themselves to a gate at Columbia University as they called for the release of Mahmoud Khalil on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 in New York, NY. James Keivom“This is egregious conduct by DHS that should require, under the law, termination of these proceedings, and we hope that the immigration court will so rule.”
A lawyer who was on the phone with Khalil during his encounter with the feds further said Khalil complied with every order he was told.
“This is clearly yet another desperate attempt by the Trump administration to justify its unlawful arrest and detention of human rights defender Mahmoud Khalil, who is now, by the government’s own tacit admission, a political prisoner of the United States,” attorney Amy Greer said in a statement.
While walking on a sidewalk with his wife, Khalil was approached by a Homeland Security Investigations agent before being apprehended. via REUTERSKhalil is a legal permanent resident and served as spokesperson for anti-Israel rabble rousers on Columbia’s campus last year.
While he isn’t facing criminal charges, the White House has argued he’s voiced beliefs adverse to US foreign policy.
An immigration judge in Louisiana ruled earlier this month that Khalil could be booted from the country, but he still has a chance to appeal.
With Post wires.
