U.S. says it will keep detaining pro-Palestinian activist Khalil
FILE PHOTO: Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, in New York City, U.S., June 1, 2024. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo
By Luc Cohen
The U.S. government said on Friday pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil would remain in detention after a U.S. judge ruled foreign policy interests could not be used to justify confinement of the Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist.
Khalil's lawyers had called for his immediate release, but U.S. attorneys said in a letter to the judge they would keep holding him on other charges such as immigration fraud that were not addressed in the Wednesday ruling.
President Donald Trump has vowed to deport foreign students like Khalil in the pro-Palestinian protest movement, which Trump has called antisemitic. Civil rights groups say Khalil's arrest and detention are an attack on protected political speech.
Lawyers for the Syrian-born activist were fighting for his release as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, another immigrant targeted by the Trump administration, pleaded not guilty to migrant smuggling charges after his wrongful deportation.
Marc Van Der Hout, a lawyer for Khalil, said the government practically never detained people for immigration fraud and he was being punished for opposing Israel's U.S.-backed war in Gaza following Hamas' October 2023 attack.
"Detaining someone on a charge like this is highly unusual and frankly outrageous," said Khalil's lawyer Marc Van Der Hout. "There continues to be no constitutional basis for his detention."
Newark, New Jersey-based U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz on Wednesday ruled the administration was violating Khalil's right to free speech by trying to deport him under a little-used law granting the U.S. secretary of state power to seek deportation of non-citizens whose presence in the country was deemed adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests.
The U.S. government has also said Khalil should be deported because he fraudulently withheld information from his application for a green card.
Khalil's lawyers said allegations he misrepresented himself in his application are spurious.
Farbiarz has written that lawful permanent residents are rarely detained on the basis of immigration fraud.
Khalil, a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel's war on Gaza, was arrested by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan on March 8. He has since been held in immigration detention in Louisiana.
Khalil's U.S. citizen wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, gave birth to the couple's first child while Khalil was detained in April.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
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