On Thursday, over 10 grueling hours behind the barbed wire of the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where Khalil is being held, his lawyers called on experts via videoconference to convince the judge to grant him asylum and set him free. Here\u2019s the heart of their argument: The Trump administration\u2019s false, they say, and public accusations that Khalil is an anti-Semite and terrorist sympathizer have turned him into a high profile critic of Israel known around the world. Because of that, he said he fears that if he is deported to the Middle East, Israel could come after him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could range from assassination, kidnapping, torture,\u201d Khalil said during more than three hours of testimony that recalled key moments in his life, from his earliest memory in a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus, Syria, to missing the birth of his son last month because he was locked up at the detention center 1,400 miles from his home in New York.<\/p>\n
President Trump, Secretary of State Rubio, and other government officials \u201cmislabeled me a terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer or a Hamas supporter, which couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. I advocate for human rights. I never engaged in antisemitic activities,\u201d Khalil said.<\/p>\n
He challenged the government lawyers sitting a few feet from him to offer any evidence to the contrary.\u00a0\u201cI became, not by choice, a celebrity \u2013 someone who has a target on his back by these mislabels. This means wherever I go in the world, I will have that target.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Comans said it would be several weeks before she makes a decision on Khalil\u2019s asylum claim. But whatever she decides will not be the final word on his fate. A federal judge in the Northeast has temporarily blocked the government from deporting him while he considers whether it violated Khalil\u2019s constitutional right to free speech. Khalil\u2019s lawyers are pursuing every legal option to stop his deportation and restore his green card, and have said they\u2019ll go all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.<\/p>\n During Thursday\u2019s asylum hearing, his lawyers questioned several experts on the Middle East about why they thought Khalil would be at risk if he\u2019s sent back there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. has called him a pro-Hamas agent,\u201d said Muriam Haleh Davis, a professor of the Middle East at U.C. Santa Cruz. She said Israel has historically targeted Hamas collaborators for assassination.<\/p>\n Khaled Elgindy, an expert on Israeli-Palestinian affairs at Georgetown University, told the court that Khalil\u2019s newly elevated profile as a critic of Israel\u2019s bombardment of Gaza puts him at risk of harm or arrest.<\/p>\n Khalil has achieved an ability to sway Americans, Elgindy said, so \u201che is a direct and potent threat to Israel\u2019s objectives. If he can be targeted by the United States government, then certainly the Israelis would perceive him in a similar light.\u201d<\/p>\n Lisa Wedeen, a Syria expert at the University of Chicago, testified about the ease with which, if it wanted to, Israel could target Khalil there, given Syria\u2019s political instability and Israel\u2019s recent expansion of the territory it controls in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cMy biggest worry is that they\u2019ll disappear him,\u201d Wedeen said, because of \u201cthe latitude and impunity with which Israel is able to operate in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n During his testimony, Khalil said that in addition to fearing Israel, he\u2019s also concerned that if he returns to Syria, he could be targeted by former operatives of Bashar al-Assad who\u2019ve remained in the country since Assad\u2019s government fell last December. Khalil, who is now 30, said he organized protests against Assad as a teenager in Syria and fled the country in 2013 after two cousins he often protested with were arrested.<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security did not call any witnesses of its own to challenge Khalil\u2019s claim of fear. Whether it submitted written testimony is unclear.<\/p>\n But when he cross-examined Khalil, Numa Metoyer, a lawyer for the department, asked questions probing the level of danger Khalil would actually face.<\/p>\n If he feared deportation to Syria, Metoyer asked him, why had he visited the country in January?<\/p>\n \u201cBefore March 8 was different than after March 8,\u201d Khalil said, referring to the date ICE agents arrested him, leading President Trump to\u00a0call him<\/u><\/a>\u00a0a \u201cRadical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause attention was brought to you here in this case, now you have been targeted by the Israeli government?\u201d Metoyer asked.<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to questions about Khalil\u2019s asylum claim. After the hearing, his lawyers said they hoped the judge will consider it \u201cwith an open mind.\u201d<\/p>\n During his testimony, Khalil did too.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough I have no faith in the immigration system,\u201d he said, \u201cI hope that my presence here is not merely a formality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/05\/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-16.jpg\")