Judge says government must release Mahmoud Khalil
The Brief
A federal judge ruled that ICE must release Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student and recent Columbia graduate, unless the government appeals within 40 hours.
Khalil, a green card holder, was detained in March by DHS agents and held in Louisiana for his involvement in pro-Palestinian campus protest.
The Trump administration argues Khalil's activism threatens U.S. foreign policy interests, but has not alleged criminal conduct or presented evidence linking him to extremist groups.
NEW YORK - A federal judge has ruled that the government must release Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University student who has been in ICE custody for over two months over pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The government has 40 hours to appeal the decision; until then, Khalil will remain in custody, likely through at least Friday.
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"The court's decision is the most significant vindication yet of Mahmoud's rights," said Ramzi Kassem, co-director of CLEAR, a legal nonprofit and clinic at the City University of New York that represents Khalil. "But we aren't out of the woods until Mahmoud is free and back home with his wife and child."
Timeline
The Trump administration has been pushing to deport Khalil and other student demonstrators over their involvement in campus protests against Israel.
"We gave you a visa to study and earn a degree, not to become a social activist and tear up our university campuses," Sen. Marco Rubio said shortly after Khalil's arrest.
Khalil, a 30-year-old Palestinian by ethnicity who was born in Syria, was arrested back on March 8 in New York and taken to a detention center in Louisiana.
The immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana, is thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife (a U.S. citizen), who gave birth to their first child while he was in custody.
He recently finished his coursework for a master's degree at Columbia's school of international affairs.
The backstory
Khalil has adamantly rejected allegations of antisemitism, accusing the Trump administration in a letter sent from jail last month of "targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent."
"Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances," he added, "I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child."
Facing a deadline from an immigration judge to turn over evidence for its attempted deportation of Khalil, the federal government submitted a brief memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing the Trump administration's authority to expel non-citizens whose presence in the country damages U.S. foreign policy interests.
The two-page memo, which was obtained by the Associated Press, does not allege any criminal conduct by Khalil.
Rather, Rubio wrote, Khalil could be expelled for his beliefs.
Judge Farbiarz had ruled earlier that expelling Khalil from the U.S. on those grounds was likely unconstitutional.
Big picture view
The Trump administration has pulled billions of dollars in government funding from universities and their affiliated hospital systems in recent weeks as part of what it says is a campaign against antisemitism on college campuses, but which critics say is a crackdown on free speech. To get the money back, the administration has been telling universities to punish protesters and make other changes.
The U.S. government has also been revoking the visas of international students who criticized Israel or accused it of mistreating Palestinians.
At the time of Khalil's arrest, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson accused Khalil of leading activities "aligned to Hamas," referring to the militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
But the government has not produced any evidence linking Khalil to Hamas, and made no reference to the group in their most recent filing.
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