Trump judge shopped and had Khalil sent to Louisiana. The first few paragraphs.
A Louisiana immigration judge ruled Friday that activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported.
Khalil, who as a Columbia University graduate student led pro-Palestinian protests there last year, was detained last month after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had determined that Khalil's activism was antisemitic and that allowing him to remain in the country would undermine a U.S. foreign policy goal of combatting antisemitism around the world.
During a hearing at the remote Louisiana detention center where Khalil is being held, Judge Jamee Comans said she had no authority to question Rubio's determination.
After the ruling, Khalil told the judge, "I would like to quote what you said last time that there's nothing that's more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness. Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process.
"This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family," he added. "I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months."
Khalil will not immediately be deported. His attorneys have said that if he were ordered deported, they would appeal the judge's ruling. Comans gave Khalil until April 23 to request a stay of his deportation if his attorneys believe he qualifies for one. And the judge said if they don't meet that deadline, she will order him deported either to Syria, where he was born, or to Algeria, where he is a citizen.
" which means we shift from "you're not supposed to build this oppressive surveillance panopticon" to "we will pay you billions of dollars to develop this oppressive surveillance panopticon, you just can't use it against this ever-smaller category of people yet."
