The Trump administration did not have an arrest warrant for former Columbian student Mahmoud Khalil when he was taken into custody, court documents showed Thursday.
In the documents, the government said federal officials “had an ex-condition to make a warrantless arrest” against Halil, and said negotiators before the Palestinian arrest in Colombia were “flight risk.”
“The agents had reason to believe that respondents would likely flee before they could get a warrant,” the federal government said in a court filing.
The remaining video footage from Halil’s wife shows him leaving peacefully with the officer, saying, “I’m coming with you.”
“In this week’s DHS submission to the immigration court, we learned that the first DHS agent who arrested Mahmoud had lied to him. They wrote in their arrest report that the agent told him he had an arrest warrant, but DHS has now admitted that it was a lie and that he was arrested at the time of his arrest.”
Oka reached out to the State Department for comment.
Halil’s lawyers are fighting in federal court to receive bail and a preliminary injunction to return Halil to New Jersey from Louisiana.
The fight is taking place after a Louisiana immigration judge determined that it could continue under government debate. The Secretary of State has the right to order the deportation of non-citizens if they pose a threat to US foreign policy.
The government also alleges that Halil did not disclose his permanent residence application, including his position at the Syrian office at the British embassy in Beirut.
“Ice admitted that Mahmoud was illegally detained and detained without a warrant. To justify that, they now lie with absurd claims that he tried to escape. At every stage of the road, the Trump administration took the law.”
