Expert Report for Mahmoud Khalil

Honorable Michael E. Farbiarz
United States District Judge
District of New Jersey
Martin Luther King Courthouse
50 Walnut Street
Newark, NJ 07101

DECLARATION OF JOHN RAPHLING

I, John Raphling, declare as follows:

1. I am an associate director and researcher for Human Rights Watch’s US Program. I submit this declaration to inform the court about the likely impacts of the US government’s efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil on the right to free expression throughout the United States, especially on university campuses.
2. Human Rights Watch has serious concerns that the Secretary of State’s invocation of “foreign policy grounds” as a basis to deport Mahmoud Khalil serves as a pretext for violating his right to free expression under international human rights law and is intended by the Secretary to punish and deter protected speech, particularly among international and non-US citizen students.[1] This is creating a climate of fear on campuses across the country.
3. Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international research and advocacy organization that investigates alleged violations of international human rights law throughout the world and advocates for accountability for perpetrators, reparations for victims, and changes of policy to prevent ongoing and future abuses.[2] HRW has conducted investigations in over 90 countries, advocating before international bodies, like the United Nations, before local and national governments, including on many occasions U.S. Congressional committees, and to the public. The United States Program at HRW investigates human rights issues in the US, including violations by immigration enforcement agencies and within criminal legal systems.[3] The US Program also investigates government actions that may undermine democratic processes and institutions.
4. I have conducted research for the US Program at HRW for over eight years.[4] My primary area of expertise is the criminal legal system and systems of government coercion. I have researched free expression issues, particularly on US university campuses in the context of protests related to the Israeli assault on Gaza. Prior to working for HRW, I was a lawyer for over twenty years who represented protesters, political activists, and organizers in civil and criminal courts in cases related to their rights to free expression.
5. Officials for the Department of Homeland Security arrested Mahmoud Khalil on March 8, 2025, have detained him since, and seek to deport him, despite his status as a lawful permanent resident.[5] The US government has supplied an undated memorandum from Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoking the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) Section 237(a)(4)(C) as a basis for these actions.[6] In the memorandum, the Secretary acknowledges that Khalil’s actions, statements and beliefs are lawful, but he “determines” that his presence in the US would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest.” The Secretary cites no specific actions or beliefs, but he refers to Khalil’s participation in protests which he claims are “anti-Semitic.” He provides no evidence for this claim, although that INA provision requires “reasonable ground” for such a determination.[7]
6. Khalil, along with tens of thousands of other students, faculty and staff, participated in protests on US university campuses in the months following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023[8], and during Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza. As the death toll in Gaza has soared amid allegations of grave human rights violations carried out by Israeli forces[9], campus protests proliferated and over 3,000 students were arrested nationwide in the spring of 2024, though Khalil was not one of them.[10]
7. Opposition to Israel’s actions, to US support for those actions, and to university policies including their investments in companies that profit from abuses in Israel, are legitimate political viewpoints, the expression of which is protected by US and international human rights law.[11] Such free expression is at the core of a democratic society.
8. As the protest movement grew on college campuses, it emerged as a flashpoint during the 2024 presidential election. As a candidate, Donald Trump falsely equated protests against the Israeli military’s extensive bombardment of Gaza with antisemitism and support for terrorism. He threatened “any student that protests, I throw them out of the country.”[12] The Republican Party platform included a commitment to “[d]eport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.”[13]
9. Upon taking office, President Trump said: “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests … we will find you, and we will deport you.”[14] Following Khalil’s arrest, the official White House X account declared “Shalom, Mahmoud” and announced a campaign against “terrorist sympathizers.”[15] Trump personally posted that “[t]his is the first arrest of many to come.”[16]
10. The Trump administration has claimed generally, as in Khalil’s case specifically, that their right to revoke immigrants’ legal status is based on that same provision of the INA that allows the secretary of state to determine that a person’s presence in the country “would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”[17]
11. DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar cited to “pro-Palestinian activity” as the reason for Khalil’s impending deportation and refused to answer whether protesting itself was grounds for deportation.[18]
12. There are other recent examples of this arbitrary targeting of people for their viewpoint on Palestinian rights. On March 25, 2025, masked and camouflaged federal agents wearing black hooded sweatshirts seized Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student from Türkiye and Fulbright scholar on a student visa, from a public sidewalk near her home in a Boston suburb, and took her into custody.[19] The federal government transported her over a thousand miles away to a detention center in Louisiana and said it intends to deport her. DHS officials alleged that Öztürk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” apparently because she co-authored an opinion piece[20] in a student newspaper calling on Tufts University to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”[21] and divest from investments connected to Israel. DHS has also sought to arrest and deport Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University undergraduate and lawful permanent resident from South Korea who has lived in the US since childhood following her arrest during a campus protest.[22]
13. The administration’s justifications for the arrest and planned deportations of Khalil and several other students are illegitimate and false and violate international human rights law.[23]
14. These actions reflect the administration’s larger pattern of exerting pressure on universities to silence protests related to the ongoing hostilities in Gaza.[24] The administration has terminated government funding[25] and initiated Department of Justice investigations[26] against universities it alleges promote antisemitism based on claims that they have not suppressed pro-Palestine activism on campus sufficiently. Officials have demanded that universities provide the names and nationalities of protesters and activists to law enforcement officials.[27]  
15. The arrest, detention, and efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil and others have created a climate of fear among international students and US citizens who understand that the Trump administration seeks to punish people for speaking out in a way the administration disagrees with on this important public issue. That threat of punishment has suppressed people’s free speech and expression as they seek to avoid drawing attention to themselves.
16. I am aware of numerous reports from campuses across the US of students, researchers and faculty members experiencing pervasive fear in response to the threat of punitive actions exemplified by the detention and possible deportation of Mahmoud Khalil. [28] Actions taken in response to the threat include, among others, making preparations for arrest every time they leave their homes, hiding their identities in public, not attending classes, changing career plans, cancelling travel or opting to return to their home countries. International students have stopped engaging in classroom discussions about controversial topics, particularly Israel and Palestine, declined to attend protest or educational events that they otherwise would attend, stopped posting on social media about these topics and removed previous posts that might attract attention from the government, stop publishing papers, speaking on panels, conducting research, teaching classes, decline job offers, and otherwise retreat from speaking out publicly, and even privately.
17. My colleagues at HRW who speak on campuses about Israel and Palestine conflict report hearing repeatedly from students raising these same fears and describing similar actions, including from students who are US citizens. The silencing of students, researchers, and faculty not only harms those individuals, it deprives everyone on campus of the benefit of their viewpoints and scholarship, diminishing academic freedom and the quality of education for all. It discourages foreigners from coming to the US to study, conduct research and teach, depriving the country of their contributions.[29]
18. Punishing people for exercising their rights to free speech and assembly is a violation not only of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, but also of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the US ratified in 1992, including Article 9, which forbids arbitrary arrest and detention, Article 19, which protects free expression, and Article 21, which protects freedom of assembly.[30] Under the ICCPR, noncitizens have these rights as well.[31] HRW has documented how authoritarian regimes throughout the world detain, deport and otherwise punish critics of government policy in order to silence them.[32]
19. The Trump administration is claiming the authority to punish and remove noncitizen dissenters at will, without providing any meaningful justification. These actions not only violate the rights of those being targeted, but by intimidating others into silence, they represent a much larger threat to the right of free expression for all people in the US, citizens and non-citizens alike.
20. If the US government succeeds in deporting Mahmoud Khalil, it sends a direct message to everyone residing in this country that, if they speak out in a way the administration disagrees with on this major public issue, they risk severe consequences.

I DECLARE UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY THAT THE FORGOING IS TRUE AND CORRECT TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF.  

Dated: June 4, 2025

John Raphling
Declarant