Trump govt admits Mahmoud Khalil was detained without warrant, says he was a flight risk

Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil whose arrest sent shockwaves among university students in the country was detained without an arrest warrant, the Donald Trump administration admitted to the court. It cited exigent circumstances for the warrantless arrest and said there was a flight risk. Mahmoud Khalik said he would not cooperate and intended to leave the scene,the immigration authorities said.

Khalil, a Syria-born legal US resident with a green card, was arrested March 8 after he returned from an Iftar meal during Ramadan. Video footage of the arrest shows Khalil cooperating and telling officers, "Yes, I'm coming with you."

DHS argued in court documents submitted to the court Thursday that it did not need to obtain a warrant before the arrest because immigration officers have the power to detain people where there is suspicion of “an offense against the United States.”

"The HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] supervisory agent believed there was a flight risk and arrest was necessary," the DHS wrote. "The agents had reason to believe that the respondent was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained," it continued.

Khalil's lawyers claim he was cooperating with the agents

Khalil’s attorneys, however, argue DHS did need a warrant to enter their client's apartment building. Khalil's legal team is calling for the case to be dismissed, claiming that he cooperated with authorities throughout the arrest and that no evidence has been presented to prove he was a flight risk.

"We learned for the first time that the DHS agents who arrested Mahmoud lied to him: they wrote in their arrest report that the agents told him that they had an arrest warrant, but DHS has now admitted in their filing that that was a lie and that there was no warrant at all at the time of the arrest," Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s attorneys, said in a statement.

Khalil not allowed to see his newborn

Khalil's wife Noor Abdalla gave birth to their first son in New York while Khalil remains in ICE detention in Louisiana. "I welcomed our son into the world earlier today without Mahmoud by my side. Despite our request for ICE to allow Mahmoud to attend the birth, they denied his temporary release to meet our son. This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer," Khalil's wife said in a statement issued on April 21.