Trump administration accuses pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil of hiding info on his green card application | National & World [Video]

(CNN) — The Trump administration – after accusing Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil of being a Hamas sympathizer without providing evidence – now says Khalil’s deportation is justified because he did not reveal connections to two organizations in his application to become a permanent US resident, an argument his attorneys call weak.

Khalil failed to state on his green card application he had previously worked for the Syria office of the British Embassy in Beirut and was a member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, the government says, the latter a focus of intense criticism from American and Israeli politicians who accuse it of antisemitism.

Khalil “sought to procure an immigration benefit by fraud of willful misrepresentation of a material fact,” the US government wrote in the brief filed Sunday. “Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations … It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this …