US government lawyers pushed Friday for the case of a pro-Palestinian protest leader slated for deportation to be moved to a Louisiana court thought to be sympathetic to President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown, AFP reports.
At a hearing in New Jersey, government lawyer August Flentje said that “for jurisdictional certainty, the case belongs in Louisiana.” But Khalil’s lawyer Baher Azmy accused the government of seeking to move the case to bolster its “retaliation.”
The judge said he would not rule immediately on shifting the case to the Western District of Louisiana, a more conservative bench that has previously been sympathetic to Trump’s policies.
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