Mahmoud Khalil Testifies That Deportation Could Mean Death for Him

Mahmoud Khalil testified Thursday that he had never imagined that the United States would persecute him for his speech and that his deportation could lead to “assassination, kidnapping, torture” — and danger for his wife and the infant son he had met just hours earlier.

“This is truly unlawful, what is happening to me,” he said during an asylum hearing in Jena, La., adding, “I believe that justice will prevail.”

It was a whirlwind day for Mr. Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and one of the leading figures in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. In the early morning, he saw his 1-month-old child, Deen, for the first time. And for hours, he sat through testimony from witnesses called by his lawyers who said that he would be in mortal danger were he to be deported.

In his own testimony, Mr. Khalil said that the United States government had “mislabeled me a terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer, which couldn’t be further from the truth.” Regardless, he said, wherever he might go in the world, he would have a target on his back.

Mr. Khalil was arrested in New York City in March and has been detained in Louisiana for more than two months. Having already ruled that the Trump administration had met its burden to deport him, an immigration judge, Jamee Comans, listened to witnesses who argued that his international prominence meant that Israel would target him if he were sent abroad.

“His life is at stake,” one of his lawyers, Marc Van Der Hout, told Judge Comans.

Mr. Khalil, on the stand, acknowledged the gravity of the potential repercussions were he to leave the United States. But earlier in the day, he was distracted: During the first portion of the hearing, the baby was asleep in the courtroom wrapped in a tan blanket with a blue pacifier. Every time the boy cooed, Mr. Khalil turned and smiled.