Trump administration: Deported, pro-Palestinian protest leader Khalil concealed info for green card

The Trump administration reportedly says Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests while enrolled in the Ivy League school last spring, was deported because he didn't full disclose information about several organizations to which he was connected. 

The federal government in a court filing Sunday alleged Khalil didn't disclose that he was a member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East nor that he worked for the Syria office of the British Embassy in Beirut, according to CNN.

The news outlet did not report which federal agency made the claim.

Israel has accused UNRWA of having some of its staff working with Hamas terrorists to carry out the Oct. 7 attack in 2023 that resulted in 1,200 people being killed. 

Khalil was taken into custody by federal agents earlier this month in the lobby of his Columbia-owned apartment in New York City despite having a green card – a document that allows immigrants to work in the U.S. and provides them with a pathway to citizenship, resulting in backlash. 

The government initially said he was arrested due to being a threat to national security. 

The filing Sunday also in part states Khalil “sought to procure an immigration benefit by fraud of willful misrepresentation of a material fact," CNN also reports "Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations … It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech."

Khalil's attorneys reportedly said that the federal government's argument was weak.