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    Mahmoud Khalil can be expelled for his beliefs alone, US government argues

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    Facing a deadline from an immigration judge to turn over evidence for its attempted deportation of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, the federal government has instead submitted a brief memo, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, citing the Trump administration’s authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country damages US foreign policy interests.The two-page memo, which was obtained by the Associated Press, does not allege any criminal conduct by Khalil, a legal permanent US resident and graduate student who served as spokesperson for campus activists last year during large demonstrations against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza.Rather, Rubio wrote Khalil could be expelled for his beliefs.He said that while Khalil’s activities were “otherwise lawful”, letting him remain in the country would undermine “US policy to combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States”.“Condoning antisemitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio wrote in the undated memo.The submission was filed on Wednesday after Judge Jamee Comans ordered the government to produce its evidence against Khalil ahead of a hearing on Friday on whether it can continue detaining him during immigration proceedings.Attorneys for Khalil said the memo proved the Trump administration was “targeting Mahmoud’s free speech rights about Palestine”.The government is relying on a rarely used provision of a 1952 law giving the secretary of state broad powers to order the removal of immigrations deemed harmful to foreign policy. Khalil’s lawyers argue that law was never meant to go after constitutionally protected speech.Johnny Sinodis, one of Khalil’s immigration lawyers, said in a media briefing on Thursday that the memo doesn’t come close to meeting the evidentiary standard required under immigration law.“The Rubio memo is completely devoid of any factual recitation as to why exactly Mahmoud’s presence in the United States is adverse to a compelling US government interest,” he said.A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, did not respond to questions about whether it had additional evidence against Khalil, writing in an emailed statement: “DHS did file evidence, but immigration court dockets are not available to the public.”Khalil, 30, was arrested on 8 March in New York and taken to a detention center in Louisiana. He is a Palestinian by ethnicity who was born in Syria. Khalil recently finished his coursework for a master’s degree at Columbia’s school of international affairs. He is married to an American citizen who is due to give birth this month.Khalil has adamantly rejected allegations of antisemitism, accusing the Trump administration in a letter sent from jail last month of “targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent”.“Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances,” he added, “I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThough Rubio’s memo references additional documents, including a “subject profile of Mahmoud Khalil” and letter from the Department Homeland Security, the government did not submit those documents to the immigration court, according to Khalil’s lawyers.The memo also calls for the deportation of a second lawful permanent resident, whose name was redacted in the filing.The Trump administration has pulled billions of dollars in government funding from universities and their affiliated hospital systems in recent weeks as part of what it says is a campaign against antisemitism on college campuses, but which critics say is a crackdown on free speech. To get the money back, the administration has been telling universities to punish protesters and make other changes.The US government has also been revoking the visas of international students who criticized Israel or accused it of mistreating Palestinians.At the time of Khalil’s arrest, McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, accused the activist of leading activities “aligned to Hamas”, referring to the militant group that attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.But the government has not produced any evidence linking Khalil to Hamas, and made no reference to the group in its most recent filing.Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a member of Khalil’s legal team, acknowledged the case’s high profile and its stakes.“If the secretary of state claims the power to arrest, detain and deport someone, including a lawful permanent resident, simply because that person dissents from US foreign policy, there are no limits. There’s no beginning and no end to that kind of executive power,” he said. More

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      Trump administration deports more alleged gang members to El Salvador

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      The 17 additional people the US shipped off to a prison in El Salvador on Sunday and accused of being tied to transnational gangs were sent there from immigration detention at Guantánamo Bay, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian on Monday afternoon.The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced the overnight military transfer, asserting that the group included “murderers and rapists” from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs, which the Trump administration has recently labeled foreign terrorists.The 17 now-deported individuals were Salvadoran and Venezuelan nationals. Fox News was first to report the names and crimes allegedly committed that the White House has since confirmed.El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, posted on social media that the deportees were “confirmed murderers and high-profile offenders, including six child rapists”.Immigration officials announced in mid-March they had removed all migrants being held at Guantánamo Bay and returned them to the US, just weeks after sending the first batch to the US military base in Cuba. Donald Trump had pledged to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history, and controversially, Guantánamo was considered to be a staging ground for the actions, with options to expand the facilities used for immigration-related detention.Approximately 300 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, were recently deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), a mega-prison notorious for brutal conditions.Family members have repeatedly denied gang affiliations, while the administration has refused to provide evidence, invoking “state secrets” privilege.Questions about the accuracy of these gang allegations have intensified as more information has emerged about some of them, such a 23-year-old gay makeup artist with no apparent gang affiliations who was deported to the Cecot prison without a hearing. His attorney, Lindsay Toczylowski, said officials had previously misinterpreted his tattoos as gang symbols, and that his client was scheduled to appear at an immigration court appearance in the US before he was suddenly sent to El Salvador.The deportations come amid legal challenges to Trump’s use of the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, which a federal appeals court has blocked. A federal judge has ordered “individualized hearings“ for those targeted for removal.Intelligence agencies reportedly contradict Trump’s claims linking the Tren de Aragua gang to the Venezuelan government, undermining a key justification for the deportations, according to the New York Times.Still, the Trump administration has vowed to continue the deportation strategy through other means, and is currently petitioning the supreme court to lift the block on its use of the wartime deportation powers. More

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      Rubio boasts of canceling more than 300 visas over pro-Palestine protests

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      The US state department is undertaking a widespread visa-review process, revoking hundreds of visas and placing hundreds more under scrutiny, targeting mostly foreign nationals engaged in pro-Palestine activism, according to official statements.The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, confirmed the scale of the crackdown, announcing that he has canceled visas for more than 300 people he called “lunatics” connected to campus pro-Palestine protests in the US, with promises of action to continue daily.Asked by reporters during a visit to Guyana in South America to confirm reports of 300 visas stripped, Rubio said: “Maybe more than 300 at this point. We do it every day, every time I find one of these lunatics.”One recent example of the policy’s implementation has been US immigration authorities detaining Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University on a Fulbright scholarship, in broad daylight by masked agents in plainclothes.Her arrest and visa revocation came after she voiced support for Palestinians in Gaza in an op-ed she co-authored in her student newspaper. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas”, a justification being denounced as a direct assault on academic freedom and the erosion of free speech and personal liberties.In addressing her case specifically, Rubio said: “We revoked her visa … once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States … if you come into the US as a visitor and create a ruckus for us, we don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country.”But the visa-revocation campaign is just part of a broader, more aggressive deportation enforcement strategy that extends far beyond protest-related actions.The Trump administration has simultaneously implemented other restrictive measures, including pausing green card processing for certain refugees and asylum seekers and issuing a global directive instructing visa officers to deny entry to transgender athletes, of which there are very few.In a statement to Fox News, the state department claimed that it had “revoked the visas of more than 20 individuals”, and said hundreds more were under consideration under the banner of what they call “national security concerns”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Overall, we continue to process hundreds of visa reviews to ensure visitors are not violating terms of their visas and do not pose a threat to the United States and our citizens,” the statement said.The state department did not return a request for comment on whether these revocations were student visas, work visas or otherwise. More

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      The Guardian view on the Signal war plans leak: a US security breach speaks volumes | Editorial

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      It is jaw-dropping that senior Trump administration figures would accidentally leak war plans to a journalist. But the fundamental issue is that 18 high-ranking individuals were happy discussing extremely sensitive material on a private messaging app, highlighting the administration’s extraordinary amateurishness, recklessness and unaccountability.The visceral hostility to Europe spelt out again by the vice-president, JD Vance, was glaring. So was the indifference to the potential civilian cost of the strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, designed to curb attacks on Red Sea shipping. The Houthi-run health ministry said that 53 people including five children and two women were killed. The response by the national security adviser, Michael Waltz, to the attacks was to post emojis: a fist, an American flag and fire. The lack of contrition for this security breach is also telling. Individually and together, these are far more than a “glitch”, in Donald Trump’s words. They are features of his administration.Mr Waltz appears to have organised the Signal chat and inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic. The magazine says that the secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, posted details of the timing and sequencing of attacks, specific targets and weapons systems used, though the administration denies that classified information was shared. Other members included Mr Vance; the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East; and “MAR”, the initials of the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.These conversations would normally take place under conditions of high security. While Signal is encrypted, devices could be compromised. Foreign intelligence agencies will be delighted. Legal experts say using Signal may have breached the Espionage Act.The hypocrisy is glaring. Mr Trump’s first presidential campaign – and several members of this Signal group – lambasted Hillary Clinton for using a private email server to receive official messages that included some classified information of a far less sensitive nature, and for the autodeletion of messages. These Signal messages too were set to disappear, though federal records laws mandate the preservation of such data.In many regards, this leak hammers home what US allies already knew, including this administration’s contempt for Europe, which the chat suggests will be expected to pay for the US attacks. The vice-president characterised an operation carried out to safeguard maritime trade and contain Iran as “bailing Europe out again”. Mr Hegseth responded that he “fully share[d] your loathing of European free-loading”. Concerns about information security are familiar territory too. In his first term, the president reportedly shared highly classified information from an ally with Russia’s foreign minister, and after leaving office he faced dozens of charges over the alleged mishandling of classified material, before a judge he had appointed threw out the case against him.The UK and others cannot simply walk away when they are so heavily dependent on and intermeshed with US intelligence capabilities. Their task now is to manage risk and prepare for worse to come. It may be that this breach is not chiefly distinguished by its severity, but by the fact that we have learned about it.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      White House inadvertently texted top-secret Yemen war plans to journalist

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      Senior members of Donald Trump’s cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.In an extraordinary blunder, key figures in the Trump administration – including the vice-president, JD Vance, the defence secretary Pete Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group.Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.Others in the chat included the Trump adviser Stephen Miller; Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles; and the key Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.The breach was revealed in an article published on Monday by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, who discovered that he had been included in a Signal chat called “Houthi PC Small Group” and realising that 18 other members of the group included Trump cabinet members.In his account, Goldberg said that he removed sensitive material from his account, including the identity of a senior CIA officer and current operational details.The report was confirmed by Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the national security council, who told the magazine: “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”Hughes added: “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he was unaware of the incident. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic,” Trump said.The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later released a statement saying: “President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.”The incident is likely to further raise concerns over the Trump administration’s trustworthiness with intelligence shared by erstwhile allies – not least as Hegseth boasts at one stage of guaranteeing “100 percent OPSEC – operations security” while a celebrated journalist is reading his message.The discussions seen by Goldberg include comments from Vance, who appeared unconvinced of the urgency of attacking Yemen, as well as conversations over what price should be expected of Europeans and other countries for the US removing the threat to a key global shipping route.Security and intelligence commentators in the US described the breach of operational security as unprecedented – both for the use of a commercial chat service and for the inclusion of Goldberg.In the US military, the highest political echelon and intelligence services operate under strict rules for communication of classified material and for the discussion of issues concerning operational security where lives and outcomes could be compromised by disclosure.While Signal is regarded as a secure encrypted chat service, its weakness is that phones on which it is installed can themselves be vulnerable.Among those aghast at the breach was the Democratic representative Pat Ryan, an army veteran who sits on the House armed services committee who described it using the second world war-era epithet “Fubar” – meaning “fucked up beyond all recognition”.“If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.”Shane Harris, a longtime national security reporter – formerly of the Washington Post and now with the Atlantic – wrote on BlueSky: “In 25 years of covering national security, I’ve never seen a story like this.”Goldberg writes that he was initially dubious about whether the messages might be some kind of foreign disinformation operation, but became convinced they were genuine both because of the language and positions presented and because the plan discussed coincided with an actual attack on Yemen.One striking exchange involved Vance and Hegseth making disparaging remarks about Europe.“The account identified as ‘JD Vance’ addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: ‘if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,’” Goldberg wrote. (The administration has argued that America’s European allies benefit economically from the US navy’s protection of international shipping lanes.)Goldberg continues: “The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later: “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.“Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”In reality, about 20 countries are involved in the mission to protect shipping from Houthi attacks including British warships.As Goldberg became aware of the attack on Yemen taking place, he recorded how he went back to the Signal channel:“‘Michael Waltz’ [US national security adviser] had provided the group an update. Again, I won’t quote from this text, except to note that he described the operation as an ‘amazing job.’’’A few minutes later, [another individual wrote]: “A good start.”Not long after, Waltz responded with three emojis: a fist, an American flag and fire. Others soon joined in, including “MAR”, [Marco Rubio]. He wrote: “Good Job Pete and your team!!” and “Susie Wiles”. She texted: “Kudos to all – most particularly those in theater and CENTCOM! Really great. God bless.” More

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      US deports 250 alleged gang members to El Salvador despite court ruling to halt flights

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      The US deported more than 250 mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador despite a US judge’s ruling to halt the flights on Saturday after Donald Trump controversially invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime.El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “terrorism confinement centre”.The confirmation came hours after a US federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allows the president broad leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.The US district judge James Boasberg had attempted to halt the deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under Trump’s proclamation, which was issued on Friday. Boasberg also ordered deportation flights already in the air to return to the US.“Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.“Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele,” he wrote on the social media site X, following up on an earlier post in which he said the US had sent “2 dangerous top MS-13 leaders plus 21 of its most wanted back to face justice in El Salvador”.Rubio added that “over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars”.On Friday, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to order the deportations of suspected members of the Venezuelan gang he has accused of “unlawfully infiltrating” the US. The US formally designated Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organization” last month.View image in fullscreenHe claimed the gang members were “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions” against the US.The Alien Enemies Act has only ever been used three times before, most recently during the second world war, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.It was originally passed by Congress in preparation for what the US believed would be an impending war with France. It was also used during the war of 1812 and during the first world war. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, slammed Judge Boasberg’s stay on deportations. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk,” Bondi said in a statement on Saturday night.But lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union contend that the Trump does not have the authority to use the law against a criminal gang, rather than a recognized state.On Sunday, the Republican senator Mike Rounds questioned whether the deportation flights had ignored Judge Boasberg’s order to turn around. “We’ll find out whether or not that actually occurred or not,” Rounds told CNN. “I don’t know about the timing on it. I do know that we will follow the law.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEl Salvador’s multimillion-dollar “terrorism confinement centre” – which is known by its Spanish acronym Cecot – is the centerpiece of Bukele’s highly controversial anti-gang crackdown which has seen tens of thousands of people jailed since it was launched in March 2022.The 40,000-capacity “mega-prison” was opened at the start of 2023 and has since become an essential destination for rightwing Latin American populists keen to burnish their crime-fighting credentials with voters. “This is the way. Tough on crime,” Argentina’s hardline security minister, Patricia Bullrich, enthused last year after posing outside Cecot’s packed cells.A succession of social media influencers and foreign journalists have also been invited to tour the prison to document its harsh conditions and help Bukele promote his clampdown, which has helped dramatically reduce El Salvador’s once sky-high murder rate.“The conditions in there are like something you’ve never seen … Depending on which side of the argument you fall on, it’s either the ultimate deterrent or it’s an abuse of human rights,” the Australian TV journalist Liam Bartlett reported after visiting El Salvador’s “hellhole” prison recently.“There’s no sheets [and] no mattresses. [Prisoners] sleep on cold steel frames and they eat the same meal every single day. Utensils are banned so they use their hands [to eat]. There’s just two open toilets in each of these massive cells and the lights stay on 24/7,” Bartlett added. “Imagine how long you would last in these conditions.”Human rights activists have decried how the mass imprisonments have taken place largely without legal process. More than 100 prisoners have died behind bars since Bukele’s clampdown began.Neither the US nor El Salvador offered any immediate evidence that the scores of Venezuelan prisoners sent to Cecot this weekend were in fact gang members or had been convicted of any offense. More