NEW YORK: Lawyers for a prominent pro-Palestinian protest leader requested on Friday that US immigration authorities terminate their push to deport him, alleging the Trump administration “secretly engineered” the outcome of his case.

President Trump has championed the effort to deport Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested by undercover federal agents in March last year, one of the first detentions of foreigners linked to pro-Palestinian activity in the United States.

Khalil is a former graduate student at New York’s Columbia University and was a prominent face of pro-Palestinian protests at the college at the height of the Gaza conflict.

The Trump administration sought to have him deported on the grounds that his activities were harmful to US foreign affairs, sparking a long and complex legal fight.

Though he was released from custody in June last year, Khalil has faced continued threats of deportation from federal authorities.

“New evidence reveals that the Trump administration secretly engineered the outcome of his immigration case to make an example of him,” Khalil’s lawyers said in a statement.

In a new filing on Friday, they requested that the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), part of the US Department of Justice, reopen Khalil’s case and terminate it.

On April 9, the BIA dismissed Khalil’s challenge against his removal and issued a “final” removal order.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2026