The 30-year-old pro-Palestinian student negotiator has been detained in immigration detention since March.
Supporters protest Mahmoud Khalil’s release from ice detention
Advocates demanded the release of Mahmoud Khalil when they attended a hearing at LaSalle Immigration Court in Iena, Louisiana.
A federal judge ordered the release of Columbia University alumnus Mahmoud Khalil, which hit the Trump administration’s efforts to keep him in immigration detention in connection with his Palestinian activities.
On June 20, US District Judge Michael Farbiats, New Jersey, said evidence submitted to courts that government lawyers did not contest showed that Halil, a 30-year-old legal permanent resident, was neither flight risk nor risky, and that his long-term detention since March could be punitive.
This was an extraordinary event in an ongoing case, the first of several times the Trump administration had detained students and scholars over pro-Palestinian speech and activism, detained and tried to detain scholarships. Justice Department lawyers say the Secretary of State can order people to be removed if the Secretary of State threatens the interests of foreign policy.
Halil’s lawyer said he was not a flight risk, and he was a permanent legal resident who married the father of an American citizen and his two-month-old son, the US citizen. They pointed out that he had no criminal history and had not been charged with a crime.
“We can finally sigh Ah Relief and learn that Mahmoud is on his way back to Dean, who should not have been separated from me and his father,” Khalil’s wife Noah Abdallah said in a post-ruling statement.
“We know that this ruling has not begun to tackle the injustice that the Trump administration has brought to our families… But today we are celebrating returning to New York to reunite with our small family and returning with the community that has supported us since the days of unfairly taken to speak for Palestinian freedom.”
White House spokesman Abigail Jackson said the government plans to appeal the judge’s decision and looks forward to “eliminating Halil from the United States.” In a statement, she said Farbiarz lacks jurisdiction to order release from Louisiana detention facilities.
“Mahmoud Khalil was given the privilege of coming to America to study the student visa he obtained through fraud and misrepresentation,” Jackson said. “In the US, Halil has consistently engaged in behaviours that are harmful to the interests of American foreign policy. Halil is therefore removable twice.”
On June 11, Falbiartz determined that Halil could not be detained or deported based on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s determination that he had threatened the interests of American foreign policy. However, Falbiers did not release Hallil, citing the allegations of Justice Department lawyers that Hallil “fraud or intentionally” misrepresented important facts regarding his application for permanent residency.
On June 20th, Farbiarz said he had chosen to exercise his discretion to order Khalil’s release in the case.
Farbiarz found Khalil’s flight risk research and that there was an “unusual situation” related to his “danger” to the community. In such cases, the detention would be required. He also raised concerns about the calm impact on freedom of speech and the ability of immigration judges to take on such issues.
“Given the findings based on all these factual findings, in this case I intend to choose to exercise the discretion that must be ordered to release the petitioner,” Farbiarz said in the minutes.
The government did not challenge the evidence that Khalil was not a flight risk or risk. The lawyers did not present evidence of violence, property destruction or inciting violence, he added.
Federal immigration agents arrested Halil in the lobby of a student apartment in Manhattan on March 8th. He was taken to a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, where he was held in detention, including the birth of his first child.
A Palestinian born in Syria, Khalil was a student negotiator and spokesman for Colombian protesters in the spring of 2024.
The Halil incident was the first of several well-known cases in which pro-Palestinian student activists were detained by immigration authorities and targeted deportation. Rubio claimed that Halil had participated in “anti-Semitic protests and destructive activities” that “undermine the US efforts to combat anti-Semiticism.”
Halil and his lawyers are challenging the anti-Semitism allegations. They said the Trump administration is trying to silence criticism of Israel and mistakenly confuse it with pro-Palestinian behaviorism and anti-Semitism.
In a pending federal lawsuit before a New Jersey district court, Halil alleged that his detention violated his constitutional speech and rightful proceeding rights.
“No one should be afraid of getting imprisoned,” said Alina Das, a lawyer for Halil, co-director of the Immigration Rights Clinic at the New York University School of Law, in a statement. “We are delighted that Khalil will eventually be reunited with his family.
Contribution: Eduardo Cuevas, US TOD.
