The Trump administration’s detention of a foreign-born graduate student at Columbia University over his outspoken support for Palestinians will likely prod the U.S. Supreme Court to define what rights noncitizens have in the United States, a former immigration law judge said. 

“The Constitution is not entirely clear. The courts have never really spoken that strongly. I think that it’s going to make some law that's going to be very effective,” said Andrew Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy at the immigration-restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, during an interview Tuesday on EWTN News Nightly. 

“It’s going to be the sort of case that our grandchildren, if they go to law school, will talk about a hundred years from now,” Arthur said. “But it will at least answer the question.” 

Mahmoud Khalil, who was born in a refugee camp in Syria to Palestinian parents, had a green card denoting permanent residency when federal immigration authorities arrested him at his university-owned apartment in New York City on March 8 with an eye to deporting him. 

He entered the United States in December 2022 on a student visa but got a green card in November 2024, according to court papers in a federal case challenging his arrest and detention. His wife is a U.S. citizen expecting the couple’s first child this month, according to court papers. 

Khalil’s status as a permanent resident differentiates his situation from those of student activists in the country on a student visa.  

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said March 27 that he has revoked around 300 student visas of what he called “lunatics” who “participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.” 

A lawyer for Khalil, in a brief filed in federal court the day after his arrest last month, argued that Khalil’s activities at Columbia on behalf of what she called “the human rights of the Palestinian people” are “all topics of public concern clearly protected by the First Amendment” of the federal Constitution, which protects free speech. 

To what extent free-speech guarantees apply to noncitizens is a question that neither Congress nor the U.S. Supreme Court has ever closely defined, Arthur said. 

“When it comes to … the First Amendment rights of people who are here in some sort of immigrant status, the courts have never really weighed in that heavily on what rights those individuals do have. It’s commonly accepted that they don't have the full rights of citizenship, but they do have some rights,” Arthur told EWTN News Nightly. 

Federal prosecutors justify detaining Khalil by citing in court papers by pointing to a federal statute (8 United States Code Section 1227(a)(4)(C)(i)) that says a foreign-born person “is deportable” if the U.S. secretary of state deems it that his or her “presence or activities in the United States” offer “reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the country. 

Arthur noted that Rubio determined that Khalil’s presence “undermined the commitment of the United States to antisemitism and to protecting Jewish students in our country.” 

“It’s a pretty strong argument. I think it's going to be very difficult to contradict that,” said Arthur, a Catholic, whose organization supports tougher immigration laws and enforcement. 

Khalil had a hearing Friday, April 11, in his deportation case in Louisiana, where he is being held, according to federal prosecutors. 

The habeas corpus case, in which his lawyers are asking a federal judge to order Khalil released and to declare that the arrest and detention violated his constitutional rights, is pending in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, where he was briefly held before being sent to Louisiana.