US Government seeks deportation of Mahmoud Khalil (again) | Hacker News Reader

US Government seeks deportation of Mahmoud Khalil (again)

france24.com

All because he stood up for the Palestinians during a genocide. The world isn’t fair.

It's crazy that he's a permanent resident and hasn't even been accused of a crime.

This time, ordered by a judge.

This time and last time both ordered by an immigration judge, who is a non-tenured employee of the executive branch able to be fired at will by the President and who is not allowed to consider constitutional defenses. Very different from the real judges to whom the constitutional questions in Khalil’s case are reserved.

Even statutorily rather than constitutionally, there are defenses which if proved would prevent these misrepresentations from making him deportable, and he does have appeal rights both within the executive branch immigration court system and beyond.

This case is definitely not over.

“Immigration judges” that are not part of the judicial branch are one of the weirder quirks of US government. They probably shouldn’t have been allowed to use the title “judge” at all, but here we are.

Thanks for the info! I didn't realize any of that.

No problem, it’s deceptively court-like with much less of the rigor and independence; Khalil and his team are right to call it a kangaroo court for such procedural reasons alone, whether or not he should be deportable under the law. At least he likely can appeal most or all of the case to the true federal courts - which is actually not always true; there are many situations where immigration law forbids judicial review or some or all of the immigration court’s findings, even when those findings may well be wrong.

I was slightly wrong about one unimportant detail: the immigration court system is under the DOJ and so the official with full control is the Attorney General (either herself or through her delegates/subordinates), not directly the President. But of course the President can fire the Attorney General and her politically appointed subordinates at will, so the effect is mostly the same.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com