Trump admin says no warrant was needed to arrest Columbia student activist Mahmoud Khalil because they feared hed flee

New documents entered in a New Jersey court on Thursday show that the federal government defended its warrantless arrest of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil by saying agents feared he’d flee because he said he would leave the scene.The documents were entered into the court record to defend against efforts by lawyers to win freedom for Khalil, who has been held in a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, for six weeks.In a document filed in Newark federal court, a lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security wrote on Monday that agents conducting surveillance of Khalil on March 8 were notified that he could be removed from the country because his presence or activities would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.As Khalil walked on a sidewalk with his wife, a Homeland Security Investigations agent approached and identified himself, according to the court filing.After his wife went to retrieve documents showing Khalil had lawful residence status, the agent asked him to cooperate while they tried to verify his identity, but Khalil “stated that he would not cooperate and that he was going to leave the scene,” the lawyer wrote.The Homeland Security supervisory agent at that point “believed there was a flight risk and arrest was necessary,” he said.In a release Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union contested the account, saying the claim he was about to flee was false and belied by video taken of the arrest by Khalil’s wife, along with previous accounts of the arrest.Marc Van Der Hout, a lawyer for Khalil, said in the release that agents told Khalil when he was taken into custody that they had an arrest warrant, and his lawyers only learned this week with the new government filing that there was none.“The government’s admission is astounding, and it is completely outrageous that they tried to assert to the immigration judge — and the world — in their initial filing of the arrest report that t...