DHS to deport Columbia Gaza camp activist Mahmoud Khalil to Algeria after judge reversed release order

Federal authorities have said that Gaza camp organizer and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil will be deported to Algeria, closing a lengthy legal fight over his immigration status.

Khalil, who was detained by ICE early last year, is expected to be removed from the United States after the Trump administration said he provided false information on his green card applications as well as helped lead the Gaza encampment at Columbia University, which led to the occupation in Hamilton Hall and property destruction.

“It looks like he’ll go to Algeria. That’s what the thought is right now,” Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on Wednesday. “It’s a reminder for those who are in this country on a visa or on a green card. You are a guest in this country — act like it,” she added. “It is a privilege, not a right, to be in this country to live or to study.”

The administration has sought Khalil’s removal after he helped lead the Gaza encampment at Columbia. The administration has also alleged that Khalil did not disclose that he had worked for the UNRWA, which reportedly had employees in the October 7 terror attacks

He spent roughly three months held in an immigration detention center in Louisiana before a federal New Jersey judge ordered him to be released.

That decision was reversed last week when a federal appeals court sided with the White House, undoing the order that freed him from ICE custody. The appellate panel ruled that Khalil needed to pursue his claims through the immigration court process before challenging his detention in federal court.

Following the decision, McLaughlin publicly encouraged Khalil to “self-deport now before he is arrested, deported, and never given a chance to return.” Authorities did not immediately say when they might move to take Khalil back into custody.