Anti-Israel Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil is pushing back against the federal government’s claim that he was shipped to a Louisiana immigration detention facility because of a bedbug infestation at their New Jersey lockup.
Khalil, who was nabbed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at his university-owned apartment building March 8, argues in court papers that his transfer to the Bayou State 1,300 miles away was “predetermined and carried out for improper motives,” according to court papers.
The feds claimed in their own filing that Khalil — a Palestinian descendant originally from Syria who is in the US on a green card — couldn’t stay at the Elizabeth Detention Facility “long-term due to a bedbug issue,” prompting his move to New Orleans on March 9.
But Khalil — who is fighting to be freed and for his deportation to be halted — countered that: “The entire time I was in Elizabeth, I did not hear anyone mention bedbugs,” according to his declaration filed Monday.
He also saw people “being admitted for long-term detention at the facility after being processed in the waiting room where he was held until being transported back through New York City to JFK Airport,” his lawyers wrote in court papers.
nother attorney who has multiple immigration cases in Elizabeth has documentation showing four clients were processed to be housed there between March 6 and March 13, Khalil’s lawyers wrote.
The feds said they also chose to move Khalili to Louisiana — over 1,100 miles away from his home — knowing that closer facilities in the Northeast were already overcrowded.
Khalil, 30, filed court papers seeking to be released March 9, arguing that his arrest violated his free speech rights.
His attorneys said he might miss the birth of his child if he stays locked up, as his wife, 28-year-old US citizen Noor Abdalla, is eight months pregnant.
But while he dukes it out with the Justice Department, he’s asking a Manhattan federal judge to free him on bail.
At the very least, he wants to be moved to the Garden State facility to facilitate working with his New York lawyers and so he can attend court hearings and be close to his wife.
The feds argue that Khalil’s motion should be thrown out or a least that his case should be moved to New Jersey court since he was there when he filed his petition to be freed.
Khalil — who the White House said was detained because he’s an alleged threat to national security — was not in court last week for a hearing in his case where his lawyers argued they hadn’t been able to have any confidential calls with their client since his arrest.
In Khalil’s Monday declaration he described how he thought it was going to be deported during the hectic two days of his arrest and transfer through multiple states.
He also described how at the Elizabeth facility he was forced to sleep on the floor in a cold room with roughly ten others because there were no beds, sheets or blankets.
Khalil — alongside seven other students — filed a second case to block Columbia and affiliated Barnard College from complying with a director by the Trump administration to turn over records of students’ disciplinary records. That case is pending.
The DOJ, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security all didn’t return requests for comment Tuesday.
