Mahmoud Khalil: Government argues judge's order does not require Palestinian activist's release
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Mahmoud Khalil's hopes of being freed on bond as he continues fighting the Trump administration's efforts to deport him were dashed Friday, despite a judge saying the government could no longer hold Khalil on the premise that his presence in the country is against the national interest.
The administration was given until 9:30 a.m. Friday to file an appeal, or else the preliminary injunction would go into effect. No appeal was filed Friday, and attorneys for the Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student demanded his release.
'The deadline has come and gone and Mahmoud Khalil must be released immediately. Anything further is an attempt to prolong his unconstitutional, arbitrary, and cruel detention,' Khalil's legal team said in a statement Friday morning.
Judge Michael Farbiarz gave the government a new deadline of 1:30 p.m. to respond to the demand of Khalil's attorneys that he be immediately released.
Farbiarz said the determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Khalil's presence in the country had 'potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States' was likely unconstitutional. But attorneys for the Department of Justice said the judge's decision did not prevent them from continuing to hold Khalil on a second claim – that he failed to give required information in his application to become a legal permanent resident of the US, in their response letter to the judge on Friday.
Farbiarz appeared to throw cold water on that reasoning in his order earlier this week, writing, 'The evidence is that lawful permanent residents are virtually never detained pending removal for the sort of alleged omissions in a lawful-permanent-resident application that the Petitioner is charged with here.'
But the judge did not specifically strike down that charge as a reason for detaining Khalil, and the Trump administration is seizing on that distinction.
'While the Court made a factual finding that it was unlikely that Khalil would be detained on another basis … the Court never held that it would be unlawful for Respondents to detain Khalil based on another charge of removability,' the Department of Justice attorneys wrote in their response.
Khalil has not been charged with a crime.
The Syrian-born Palestinian refugee is one of several foreign nationals the Trump administration has accused of posing a national security threat due to alleged ties to terrorist organizations – a claim his attorneys have repeatedly disputed.
The administration has relied on an obscure section of US law to argue that Khalil should be deported because his presence in the United States threatens the administration's foreign policy goal of combatting antisemitism.
His lawyers, meanwhile, challenged the legality of Khalil's detention and contend he was targeted for his pro-Palestinian views in violation of his constitutional rights. They argue the government's evidence is insufficient and based solely on a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that does not allege criminal activity.
CNN's Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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