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A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration can no longer detain Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil on the basis of federal claims that he is a threat to US foreign policy.
In his order on Wednesday, Judge Michael E Farbiarz said that the ruling will go into effect at 9.30am on Friday, adding: “This is to allow the respondents to seek appellate review should they wish to.”
Khalil, who has not been charged with a crime, had been deemed a threat to US foreign policy by secretary of state, Marco Rubio, prompting federal authorities to detain him in March.
In his ruling, Farbiarz wrote: “The petitioner’s career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled – and this adds up to irreparable harm.”
Despite his latest order, Farbiarz did note that Khalil can still remain in custody on the basis of federal officials’ claims that Khalil inaccurately filled out his green card application.
“To be sure, it might be argued that the petitioner would be detained anyway. After all, as noted above, the Department of Homeland Security is seeking to remove the petitioner based not only on the Secretary of State’s determination – but also on a second basis, the Petitioner’s alleged failure to accurately complete his lawful-permanent-resident application,” Farbiarz wrote.
He added that his findings “have no impact on efforts to remove the petitioner for reasons other than the Secretary of State’s determination”.
Khalil has been held in a detention facility in Louisiana since March as his case moved through the courts. In April, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled the Trump administration could move ahead with Khalil’s deportation, although Farbiarz, in a separate case on the legality of the detention, ordered the government not to remove him. Late last month, Farbiarz wrote that the government’s effort was likely unconstitutional.
His arrest was the first in the wave of arrests of students as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism in US universities. In the weeks after Khalil’s arrest, the government arrested an international Tufts student who had co-authored a campus newspaper op-ed about Gaza in the street and a Columbia student attending a naturalization interview and sought to deport a Columbia student who had lived in the US since she was seven.
Khalil was taken into custody on 8 March by immigration agents who refused to provide a warrant, he had previously said. He described his time in custody in Louisiana as “long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law”.
While being detained he missed the birth of his first child, whom he briefly met last month and was able to hold despite the government attempting to block a “contact visit”. Earlier this month, he described the pain of missing the birth of the baby, who is named Deen.
“Instead of holding my wife’s hand in the delivery room, I was crouched on a detention center floor, whispering through a crackling phone line as she labored alone,” Khalil said. “I listened to her pain, trying to comfort her while 70 other men slept around me. When I heard my son’s first cries, I buried my face in my arms so no one would see me weep.”
