A federal judge ruled Friday that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate threatened with deportation for his pro-Palestinian activism, should be released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on bail.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz represented a major victory for immigration and free speech advocates, along with critics of Israel’s brutal war in Gaza.
Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident, was in ICE detention in Louisiana for more than three months since law enforcement arrested him at the New York City apartment he shared with his pregnant wife, a U.S. citizen who gave birth to the couple’s first child the following month.
“After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” Dr. Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, said in a statement, referencing the couple’s infant son.
“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” Abdalla went on. “But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.”
Khalil was released Friday night after spending 104 days in custody and spoke to reporters outside the detention facility in Jena, Louisiana.
“The hundreds of men who I left behind me shouldn’t be there in the first place,” he said. “The Trump administration are doing their best to dehumanize everyone here. Whether you are a U.S. citizen, an immigrant or just a person on this land doesn’t mean that you are less of a human.”
Earlier in the day, however, a Department of Homeland Security official signaled the Trump administration would not give up in trying to keep Khalil behind bars.
“An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement dismissing Farbiarz as “one rogue district judge.”
Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans also ruled Friday against Khalil’s request for asylum and said he could eventually be deported, according to The New York Times. Khalil was born in a Syrian refugee camp to Palestinian parents and taught himself English before coming to the U.S. to study.
Another pro-Palestinian activist in a similar position, Rumeysa Ozturk, was successfully released from ICE detention by a district judge last month, allowing her to be free while her cases proceed in immigration court.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to justify Khalil’s deportation by using an obscure provision of U.S. law granting him the power to remove individuals from the country if their presence disturbs U.S. foreign policy.
While Rubio had claimed that Khalil’s leadership role in the college antiwar demonstrations was disruptive, Judge Farbiarz said earlier this month that the government was violating Khalil’s free speech rights and had to be released.
Khalil remained in ICE custody, though, on claims from the government that an immigration application he filed contained errors.
Farbiarz ruled Friday that Khalil’s supposed paperwork mistakes similarly did not necessitate his detention while his case proceeds.
Khalil’s lawyers have said the “misrepresentation” accusation, made after his arrest on March 8, is another attempt to punish their client for exercising his free speech rights.
Rubio and others in President Donald Trump’s administration argue that the antiwar demonstrations at universities like Columbia and Harvard were antisemitic and created an unsafe atmosphere for Jewish students — and have cited them as a reason to revoke hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to the schools.
For his part, Khalil has stressed that antisemitism has no place in the movement for Palestinian rights, which includes Jewish activists.
“All Americans should be grateful that Mahmoud had the fortitude to defend basic first amendment principles — and his pursuit of justice for Palestinians — against the administration’s autocratic tactics, which threaten us all,” Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement. The center is part of a coalition representing Khalil.
“Ideas are not illegal, and no administration should ever incarcerate people for expressing opinions they disagree with,” added Donna Lieberman, executive director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is also part of Khalil’s legal team.
