TV News LIES

The Trump administration’s bid to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist, is likely unconstitutional, a US judge has said.

In a lengthy order issued Wednesday, Judge Michael Farbiarz wrote that the government’s primary justification for removing Khalil – that his beliefs may pose a threat to US foreign policy – could open the door to vague and arbitrary enforcement.

Still, Farbiarz stopped short of ordering Khalil released from a Louisiana jail, finding his attorneys had not sufficiently responded to another charge brought by the government: that Khalil did not properly disclose certain personal details in his permanent residency application.

The judge said he planned to issue an order shortly outlining next steps in the case.

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A new wave of mass displacement is redrawing the landscape of Gaza.

A picturesque harbor is now blanketed in tents. A building belonging to the Qatari diplomatic mission is now a refugee camp.

Nearly 180,000 Palestinians have been on the move seeking new shelter since Israel launched an intensified military offensive two weeks ago, a United Nations-led humanitarian group said Tuesday.

Israel's military has ordered the evacuations, saying its ultimate aim is to capture 75% of the territory, send civilians to a zone in the south secured by its forces, and defeat the Palestinian militant group Hamas after more than a year and a half of war.

A Georgia police officer resigned from his job on Friday after erroneously pulling over a teenager, causing her to spend more than two weeks in a federal immigration jail, and leaving her facing deportation.

The officer, Leslie O’Neal, was employed at the police department in Dalton, a small city more than an hour north of Atlanta.

His arrest of college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal not only led to a domino effect that could lead to her deportation – it also engendered anger and criticism, especially given the circumstances of her immigration-related detention.

Though Dalton’s municipal government did not provide any information about why O’Neal resigned, his wife posted his resignation letter on Facebook, which said he believed the local police department did not adequately defend him.

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The immigration judge was looking out over her courtroom. Mahmoud Khalil was sitting at a table next to his lawyers as they tried to convince her not to order him deported to the Middle East.

"His life is at stake, your honor," one of them, Marc Van Der Hout, told the judge.

Khalil was focused and stern. But he kept getting distracted. His wife was sitting in the public gallery a few feet away, cradling their tiny newborn son, Deen. The baby was cooing. Everyone could hear. And each time, Khalil couldn't resist a smile.

It was a touch of levity in a courtroom otherwise heavy with the gravity of what was being discussed: Khalil's fear that if he's deported, the state of Israel might try to kill him.

It was a touch of levity in a courtroom otherwise heavy with the gravity of what was being discussed: Khalil's fear that if he's deported, the state of Israel might try to kill him.

Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and detained Palestinian activist, was finally allowed to hold his infant son for the first time Thursday – one month after he was born – thanks to a federal judge who blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to keep the father and infant separated by a Plexiglass barrier.

The visit came before a scheduled immigration hearing for Khalil, a legal permanent resident who has been detained in a Louisiana jail since 8 March.

The question of whether Khalil would be permitted to hold his newborn child, Deen, or forced to meet him through a barrier had sparked days of legal fighting, triggering claims by Khalil’s attorneys that he is being subject to political retaliation by the government.

The Justice Department is dropping negotiations for court-approved settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville police agencies, despite having found that authorities routinely violated the civil rights of Black people.

The two cases sparked worldwide outrage over fatal police encounters in 2020, during President Donald Trump’s final year in office. Federal authorities also are closing investigations and retracting findings of wrongdoing against police departments in Phoenix; Memphis, Tennessee; Trenton, New Jersey; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City; and the Louisiana State Police.

“Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general overseeing the department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement May 21.

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