Newly unsealed State Department documents reveal the Trump administration abducted and attempted to deport pro-Palestine and anti-war college students based on questionable justifications, according to a federal judge’s ruling. The documents detail the detention and attempted deportation of Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Mahmoud Khalil.
State Department Justifications Unsealed
U.S. District Court Judge William Young unsealed documents on Friday revealing how the State Department justified detaining and attempting to deport several pro-Palestine and anti-war college students.
The Trump-Vance-Rubio administration began targeting college students last year, utilizing a narrow authority granted to the secretary of state to target individuals potentially causing “adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The campaign initially focused on Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University protest leader who was detained in March. Agents initially told Khalil his student visa was revoked, but later stated his green card was also revoked – despite him possessing a valid green card.
According to the newly-released documents, the State Department conceded that Khalil’s involvement was limited to being a protest leader and participating in a library occupation where protestors distributed “Hamas-authored flyers.” The department did not specify that Khalil himself distributed the flyers, and found no other culpability on his part.
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