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A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio abused his authority to revoke the residency status of noncitizens for disrupting U.S. foreign policy when he did it to Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian the administration wants to deport for anti-Israel protests at Columbia University.
Judge Michael Farbiarz said Mr. Khalil is likely to succeed in his claim that Mr. Rubio’s use of the law violates “vagueness” principles.
But the judge declined to issue an injunction at this point, saying Mr. Khalil needs to submit more evidence to prove that he’s suffering a legal injury the court can correct.
Still, the ruling, if it stands, could be a major dent to the Trump team, which has cited the foreign policy disruption reason to go after several foreign nationals the administration is wanting to deport.
Judge Farbiarz said even if the government is right that Mr. Khalil engaged in untoward anti-Israel activities, it was done as part of domestic protests, which the judge said don’t implicate foreign policy matters.
The judge also said the law itself may be unconstitutionally vague because it would mean a person could be booted out of the U.S. for “compromising a compelling foreign policy interest” even if he didn’t know he was doing so.
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“The issue now before the court has been this: does the Constitution allow the Secretary of State to use Section 1227, as applied through the determination, to try to remove the petitioner from the United States?
“The court’s answer: likely not,” the judge ruled.
If Section 1227 can’t be used in this way, it could undermine some Trump administration cases against pro-Palestinian demonstrators and other legal immigrants the government has been trying to oust.
Mr. Khalil’s case has been one of the most prominent challenges to the Trump administration.
He is being held in immigration detention in Louisiana and missed the birth of his baby. He says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has even tried to block him from holding the child during visits with his wife.
An immigration judge, who is overseeing his deportation case, ruled that Mr. Khalil is deportable based on Mr. Rubio’s revocation of his status.
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The immigration judge has yet to rule on the other grounds that Mr. Khalil wrongly filled out his lawful permanent resident petition.
Mr. Khalil is still fighting the immigration court case, but he also filed what’s known as a habeas challenge in the regular federal courts, challenging his ongoing detention by the government on both of those counts.
Judge Farbiarz said he finds Mr. Khalil has not made a compelling case on botching his immigration petition, but he has made a compelling case on the Rubio revocation.
“But he has not put forward evidence as to the other things he must show to secure a preliminary injunction. The court will now afford him a chance to do so,” the judge wrote.
English (US) ·