Jena, la. (AP) – The detained student of Colombian student activist Mahmoud Halil appeared briefly on Friday at the Immigration Court at a remote Louisiana Retention Center as his lawyers fight in many places to try to release him.
The 30 -year -old Khalil, a legal resident of the United States without a criminal record, was sitting alone at an empty chair during a short court session that was only a schedule. His lawyer participates through video.
Halil was swinging back and forth of his chair as he waited for the procedure to start in a courtroom within an isolated, low-up complex for retaining immigration and customs application. The two rows of high tall fences with barbed wire and surrounded by pine forests, the facility is near the small town of Jena, approximately 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of the capital of Louisiana, Baton Rouge.
Halil smiled at two observers when they entered the room, where only 13 people gathered, including the judge, lawyers and court staff. Two journalists and four observers were present.
With the video, lawyer Mark van der Hut said he had just started to represent Halil and needed more time to talk to him, to take records and to deepen in this case. An immigration judge put a more complete hearing on April 8.
Khalil’s lawyers also went to the federal court to challenge his detention and potential deportation, which emerges as his wife, a US citizen, is expecting his first child. A Federal Judge in New York has ruled on Wednesday that Halil may dispute the legality of his detention, but the case must be moved to the Federal Court of New Jersey.
The University of Colombia was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 as part of President Donald Trump’s repression of what he calls anti -Semitic and “anti -American” protests in the campus. Halil serves as a spokesman and negotiator last year for propalist demonstrators who opposed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Protesters, some of them Jews, say it is not anti -Semitic or anti -American to criticize Israeli hostilities and advocate for the Palestinian human rights and territorial claims.
However, some Jewish students have said demonstrations not only criticized the Israeli government, but have begun in rhetoric and behavior that causes Jews to feel unwanted or downright dangerous in the Ivy League campus. Colombia’s special group for anti -Semitism discovered “serious and comprehensive” problems at the university.
White House Secretary Carolyn Levitt said Halil is organizing destructive protests that harass Jewish students and “spread pro-hama propaganda.” Hamas, the war group that controls Gaza and attacked Israel in October 2023, has been identified by the United States as a terrorist organization.
The US government seeks to deport Halil under a rare statute that allows the removal of non -iconic, which is “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Halil, an Algerian citizen who was born in Syria in a Palestinian family, said in a statement that his detention reflects an “anti -palestinian racism” in the United States prior to his detention by the government, he said that Colombia’s disciplinary investigation was tempted for being an identifying figure in protests.
Colombia is now struggling with more widespread pressure to deal with the Trump Administration’s allegations of anti -Semitism, including the government’s unprecedented requests for changes to private university if it wants to continue receiving federal remedies for research and other purposes.
Private university announced on Friday that it was taking steps that reflect the government’s demands on protests, disciplinary procedures, the Middle East Research Division and other issues.
___
Associated Press writer Jennifer Pelz in New York has contributed to this report.