The Trump administration’s McCarthyite deportation drive hit another roadblock on May 28. US district judge Michael E. Farbiarz found that a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, granting the secretary of state the power to expel noncitizens if the secretary determines they pose adverse consequences for US foreign policy, was likely unconstitutional when applied to Mahmoud Khalil. The once-obscure Cold War–era law has taken center stage as Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked it to retaliate against critics of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The ruling came as Judge Farbiarz weighs Khalil’s challenge to the constitutionality of his detention. Although the ruling is a step toward Khalil’s freedom and a rebuke to Donald Trump and Rubio, it leaves the permanent resident behind bars — for now. This is in sharp contrast to the cases of Badar Khan Suri, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Rümeysa Öztürk, similarly targeted by Rubio using the same Cold War provision, where federal judges have granted them bail pending a final ruling on their constitutional challenges. Although Khalil made a similar motion for bail on March 14, Farbiarz inexplicably has yet to rule on it.
Khalil’s prolonged purgatory is particularly cruel. When agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the law enforcement component of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), arrested Khalil, his wife was pregnant. Since then, she has given birth. Khalil was not allowed to be present at the birth of his son, and the Trump administration sought to deny Khalil any contact visits with his newborn son. It took the judicial intervention of Farbiarz for Khalil to be allowed to hold his son for the first time.
Mahmoud Khalil’s legal challenge is more than one…
Auteur: Chip Gibbons
