A federal judge has ordered Mahmoud Khalil released from federal immigration custody, more than three months after immigration agents arrested and detained him as the first student targeted for deportation by President Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters.
During a phone hearing on Friday, Judge Michael Farbiarz of the U.S. District Court for New Jersey said that the government's attempt to continue to detain Khalil was "highly, highly, highly unusual." Farbiarz recently ruled that Khalil's arrest and detention over his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University was likely unconstitutional.
"There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish Mr. Khalil," Farbiarz said in ordering Khalil's release. "And of course that would be unconstitutional."
The decision is a monumental victory for Khalil, who is the last noncitizen student still in federal custody among several that the Trump administration is known to have arrested over their campus activism. Khalil is a legal permanent resident married to a U.S. citizen. Their first child was born in April, while Khalil was detained.
"No one should fear being jailed for speaking out in this country," Alina Das, one of Khalil's lawyers, said in a statement. "We are overjoyed that Mr. Khalil will finally be reunited with his family while we continue to fight his case in court."
After Judge Farbiarz ordered Khalil set free, a Justice Department lawyer asked the judge to delay his release for a week so the government could appeal the decision. Farbiarz denied that request. But he agreed to place certain conditions on Khalil's freedom. While he said he did not consider Khalil a flight risk, he required him to surrender his Algerian passport while his case moves forward.
Khalil has been held at an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana while he's been fighting the government's attempt to deport him. ICE agents arrested him at his New York apartment on March 8 after Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally ordered him deported by claiming that his activism threatened U.S. foreign policy goals of fighting antisemitism. The government has not produced evidence to support that claim, and it never charged Khalil criminally.
Khalil will be released on bail while the challenge to his deportation moves forward in federal court.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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