Protesters gather at Tulsa City Hall to support man facing deportation

About two dozen protestors were outside Tulsa City Hall during Wednesday's city council meeting, calling on the federal government to release a man in the process of being deported.

Federal agents took Mahmoud Khalil into custody earlier this week and began the deportation process.

Khalil was the face of pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University last year.

The Department of Homeland Security says Khalil's actions were not protests but were in support of the terrorist group Hamas.

"I believe that we need to stand up for our rights and the more that we allow them to be overridden, the more that people will lose their voice," said Kay Milan, a protestor from Bixby.

Khalil has permanent resident status and a green card. The federal government wants to revoke that and send him back to Syria, where he was born.

"This is not about free speech; this is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with. Nobody has a right to a student visa, nobody has the right to a green card by the way," said Marco Rubio, Secretary of State.

Khalil will have a deportation hearing at the end of the month at an immigration court in Louisiana.