Unsealed records reveal officials targeted Khalil, Ozturk, Mahdawi solely for protected speech

Government administrative records show “actions” were often just words — and they knew it

April 15, 2025: Rally for student activist Mohsen Mahdawi after his arrest by ICE agents across from the ICE Manhattan headquarters, via Shutterstock.com

For months, the Trump administration has tried to justify its targeting of prominent pro-Palestinian activists like Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Moshen Mahdawi by insinuating that the reasons for their pending deportation went beyond mere speech. But newly unsealed records confirm the Trump administration’s legal basis for targeting these individuals was never unlawful conduct. Instead, the administration targeted them solely for protected speech — and expected a First Amendment fight from the start.

The government cast these cases as responses to unlawful conduct, but they rest on protected speech

On March 8, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and vocal pro-Palestine advocate. Rather than charging Khalil with a crime, the Trump administration attempted to deport him based on a pair of seldom-used provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 1227(a)(4)(C) and Section 1182(a)(3)(C). Together, these provisions authorize the Secretary of State to render a noncitizen deportable if he “personally determines” the person’s “lawful” activities are compromising a “compelling foreign policy interest.”

FIRE is currently challenging this provision in court on First Amendment grounds because it allows the government to turn lawful expression into a deportable offense. The INA already has provisions enabling immigration authorities to take action if a noncitizen actually engages in terrorism or provides material support to terrorist groups. The administration relied on none of them with Khalil, clinging only to the provision covering “lawful” activities. That speaks volumes.

Unsealed documents confirm the administration targeted Khalil for protected speech

When the administration defended its targeting of Khalil in the media, officials hinted there was something more than his pro-Palestine opinions driving their decision. For example, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” Rubio, after Khalil’s initial arrest, pledged he was using his INA power to go after “Hamas supporters in America.” These comments insinuated that the administration was relying on something more than Khalil’s protected political advocacy to target his immigration status.

It wasn’t. The unsealed records reveal that administration officials’ private assessment was that Khalil’s actions were lawful speech. He was, according to Senior Officer of the Bureau of Consular Affairs John Armstrong, “involved in numerous pro-Palestinian protests, including serving as the lead negotiator of an encampment at Columbia in April 2024.” Another file claims that Khalil participated in “antisemitic protests.”

Conspicuously absent from the records was any assessment Khalil engaged in conduct falling outside the First Amendment’s protection. Though the documents insinuated a tie between Khalil and the occupation of Barnard’s library, they do not actually allege Khalil was involved in the occupation. Likewise, officials note in one unsealed record that they “are not aware of any prior arrests or citations for Khalil regarding unlawful activity.”

Officials also admit that, aside from the provision allowing Secretary Rubio to render someone deportable for “lawful” activities, they haven’t “identified any alternative grounds for removability that would be applicable,” such as the provision allowing for the “removability for aliens who have provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization or terrorist activity.” In other words, without anything else to justify his deportation, the administration had to hang its actions on Khalil’s speech.

Officials admitted they targeted Ozturk based solely on an op-ed

Nineteen days after Khalil’s arrest, masked federal agents ambushed pro-Palestinian Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen with an F-1 student visa, on the streets of Boston. Agents threw Ozturk into a van and transported her thousands of miles to a remote Louisiana detention facility. Unbeknownst to Ozturk, DHS had revoked her visa days prior without telling her.

To revoke Ozturk’s visa, the administration relied on an INA provision allowing the Secretary of State to “at any time, in his discretion” revoke a visa. The provision contains no language prohibiting a visa revocation from being predicated upon the holder’s protected speech. FIRE’s lawsuit challenges this provision, too, arguing that it violates the First Amendment to the extent it authorizes a visa revocation based on protected speech.

The government’s public-facing comments about Ozturk mirror those about Khalil, implying evidence of unlawful conduct but providing evidence of none. McLaughlin alleged that “investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” But the unsealed records show officials acknowledged Ozturk’s visa revocation was based solely on her co-authorship of an op-ed in Tufts’ student newspaper. The op-ed criticized the university’s reluctance to divest from Israeli companies or call Israel’s operations in Gaza a “genocide.”

One record, a memo from Armstrong to ICE officials, suggested Ozturk was involved in “associations… that may undermine U.S. foreign policy.” The association in question? Tufts’ Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which was on suspended status. But the unsealed records reveal the only connective tissue between Ozturk and SJP is the fact that an SJP representative co-signed the op-ed with an organization Ozturk belonged to. The documents reveal no membership, role, coordination, or concrete conduct linking Ozturk to the group. In fact, the records expressly acknowledge that officials had no basis to believe Ozturk was involved in any way with the events leading to SJP’s suspension.

Plus, even if the “association” were deeper than a co-signature, the First Amendment protects association just as it protects speech. So no matter how the administration slices it, they ambushed, transported, and now are attempting to deport Ozturk for protected expression.

The unsealed records confirm the administration has no evidence Mahdawi engaged in unlawful conduct

The Trump administration is also attempting to deport Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student who has been a lawful permanent resident for over a decade. Mahdawi, like Khalil, was involved in protests at Columbia. When Mahdawi arrived at a Vermont USCIS office to complete one of the final steps in his citizenship process, ICE arrested him on the spot.

As with Khalil and Ozturk, the government’s public framing implied actions beyond protected speech. In an official DHS post styled as “THE REAL STORY,” the agency attempted to style Mahdawi as a “terrorist sympathizer and national security threat.”

But one unsealed record reveals that Mahdawi’s alleged “conduct” is that he led “pro-Palestinian protests” and “call[ed] for Israel’s destruction.” As FIRE has explained, this is expressive activity protected by the First Amendment. The records also revealed the government targeted Mahdawi because of a pro-Palestinian poem he wrote.

Protesting, chants, and poems are textbook protected speech. Tellingly, the Trump administration acknowledges in the unsealed records that a “search of interagency databases on March 14 did not reveal any record indicating that the interagency currently assesses that Mahdawi has links to terrorism.” As with Khalil, another record states, “DHS/ICE/HSI has not identified any alternative grounds of removability applicable to Mahdawi, including any indication that Mahdawi has provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization or terrorist activity, as defined in the INA.” Unsurprisingly, then, the administration was again forced to rely on the “foreign policy” provision to target Mahdawi, the one triggered solely by “lawful” activities that FIRE is now challenging.

The administration anticipated First Amendment challenges to its unprecedented assertion of immigration power

The government’s interpretation of these two INA provisions as a blank check to target noncitizens based on protected speech is unprecedented. One of the unsealed records, a March 8, 2025 memo from Armstrong to Rubio, is illustrative. In the memo, Armstrong cautioned that “We are not aware of any prior exercises of the Secretary’s removal authority in INA section 237(a)(4)(C) … [and] courts may scrutinize the basis for these determinations.”

The administration also anticipated First Amendment risk to its theory. In a March 15, 2025 memo from Armstrong to Rubio, Armstrong wrote: “Given the potential that a court may consider [Mahdawi’s] actions inextricably tied to speech protected under the First Amendment, it is likely that courts will closely scrutinize the basis for this determination. We understand that Khalil intends to seek an injunction… and we could anticipate Mahdawi to do the same.”

If the government’s decision to target Khalil, Ozturk, and Mahdawi were actually based on evidence that they were involved in terrorism, the proof would be in the pudding. They’d proceed under the INA’s settled provisions related to material support for terrorism. Instead, they’re relying on broad, discretionless grants of power to revoke a visa for “any” reason and a statute solely confined to “lawful” activities.

But the First Amendment stands tall in the United States and prohibits the government from retaliating against you because of what you have to say. The Supreme Court held in 1945 that that protection remains intact regardless of your immigration status. It is thus unsurprising that the government anticipated First Amendment challenges from the start.

That anticipation was prescient. In late September 2025, a federal district court held that the administration’s targeting of noncitizens for deportation based on protected speech violated the First Amendment. These unsealed records, released with the final judgment of that case, confirm that, despite the administration’s attempted winks and head-fakes to the contrary, targeting Khalil, Ozturk, and Mahdawi has always been predicated solely on their protected speech.

And that, as FIRE has repeatedly explained, violates the First Amendment.