US government cited inaccurate tabloid accounts in its case against Mahmoud Khalil, documents show

The US government used inaccurate information published in tabloid newspapers in its case against Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a review of more than one hundred pages of court documents submitted by the Trump administration has found.

ABC News and NBC News reported that the government used articles published in tabloids like The New York Post and The Washington Free Beacon and newspapers such as The Times of India to argue in its case against Khalil that he should be deported because he lied on his green card application.

Among the claims cited in the Trump administration's case against Khalil is that he was a "member of Unrwa", the United Nations Palestinian refugee aid agency that the US has suspended all funding for the past year.

That claim stemmed from articles in The New York Post and the Times of India, both of which linked Unrwa to the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, when they cited Khalil as a former "political affairs officer" for the organisation from June 2023 to November 2023.

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