According to a filing in the case, authorities with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) did not have a warrant to arrest Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil when he was detained last month.

Khalil’s attorneys argue that the statement contradicts what cops told him and his lawyers at the time of his detention and in a subsequent arrest report.

According to the complaint, Khalil, a green card holder and permanent legal resident, was served with a warrant when he arrived at an ICE office in New York following his detention.

Although the police “had exigent circumstances to conduct the warrantless arrest, it is the pattern and practice of DHS to fully process a respondent once in custody with an I-200 (warrant) as part of that intake processing,” the government’s attorneys claimed.

DHS said that its officers were not obligated to get a warrant for Khalil’s arrest, in part because they believed “he would escape before they could obtain a warrant.”

According to the petition, DHS officers approached Khalil inside the foyer of his Columbia-owned apartment building and said that, while his wife was retrieving his identification, Khalil told them he was leaving the scene.

“The HSI supervisory agent believed there was a flight risk and arrest was necessary,” according to the paperwork.

Khalil’s lawyers have disputed the claim that he was uncooperative with officials.

In a signed declaration filed in court last month, attorney Amy Greer, who was on the phone with Khalil’s wife at the time of his arrest, stated that an agent at the scene informed her that they had an administrative warrant.

“I asked the basis of the warrant, and he said the U.S. Department of State revoked Mahmoud’s student visa,” Greer said. “When I told Agent Hernandez that Mahmoud does not have a student visa because he is a green card holder and permanent resident in the U.S., he said DHS revoked the green card, too,” according to the declaration.

Khalil’s lawyers argue that the warrantless arrest is one of the reasons he should be released.

“That night, I was on the phone with Mahmoud, Noor, and even the arresting agent,” Greer claimed in her statement. “In the face of many operatives in civilian clothing who clearly planned to kidnap him, and despite the fact that those officers continuously refused to produce us a warrant, Mahmoud stayed calm and followed their directions. Today, we know why they never presented Mahmoud the warrant: they didn’t have one.

The statement continued with the following: “This is clearly yet another desperate attempt by the Trump administration to justify its unlawful arrest and detention of human rights defender Mahmoud Khalil, who is now, by the government’s own tacit admission, a political prisoner of the United States.”

An immigration judge determined earlier this month that Khalil, a leader of Columbia’s encampment protests in the spring of 2024, might face deportation on the grounds that he undermines foreign policy, as claimed by the Trump administration.