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mahmoud khalil
Judge: Trump Admin Can't Hold or Deport Mahmoud Khalil 'On Rubio's Say-So'
"This is the news we've been waiting over three months for. Mahmoud must be released immediately and safely returned home to New York to be with me and our newborn baby, Deen," his wife, Noor Abdalla, said.
Jun 11, 2025
The Trump administration cannot detain or deport former Columbia University student and Palestinian solidarity advocate Mahmoud Khalil over the claim that he poses a threat to U.S. foreign policy, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
"The court finds as a matter of fact that [Khalil's] career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled—and this adds up to irreparable harm," U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz of New Jersey wrote in his preliminary injunction.
While judges have ordered the release of other noncitizen student protesters detained by the Trump administration, the ruling marks the first from a federal court to state that the administration cannot deport or detain noncitizens by arguing they pose a threat to foreign policy under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New York said in a statement.
"Today's ruling is a huge win for the Constitution and the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike."
"This is the news we've been waiting over three months for. Mahmoud must be released immediately and safely returned home to New York to be with me and our newborn baby, Deen," Noor Abdalla, Khalil's wife, said in response. "True justice would mean Mahmoud was never taken away from us in the first place, that no Palestinian father, from New York to Gaza, would have to endure the painful separation of prison walls like Mahmoud has."
Khalil, a green card holder married to a U.S. citizen, has been held in a detention facility in Louisiana since he was seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from his New York City home in early March, missing the birth of his son. He has not been charged with any crime.
Instead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that Khalil's participation in student Palestine solidarity protests threatened U.S. foreign policy interests, citing Section 1227 of the U.S. Code.
Farbriarz determined late last month that Rubio's argument was "likely" unconstitutional, but stopped short of granting Khalil a preliminary injunction releasing him from detention. Since then, Khalil's legal team filed new evidence detailing the "irreparable harm" he has experienced due to his detention.
"We are relieved that the court documented what was obvious to the world, which is that the government's vindictive and unconstitutional arrest, detention, and attempted deportation of Mahmoud for his Palestinian activism is causing him and his family agonizing personal and professional harm," said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights—one of the organizations involved in Khalil's defense. "We look forward to his reunion with his wife and newborn son, and for this remarkable, brilliant man to reclaim his life and his reputation."
Brett Max Kaufman, a member of Khalil's legal team and senior counsel in the ACLU's Center for Democracy, said: "Today's ruling is a huge win for the Constitution and the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike. No one should be imprisoned or deported for their political beliefs, and the three months that Mahmoud has spent in detention are an affront to the freedoms that this country is supposed to stand for."
Fellow legal team member Ramzi Kassem, the co-founder and director of CLEAR, said, "This vindicates what Mahmoud has maintained since day one—that the government cannot detain or deport him based on Rubio's say-so."
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: "We welcome this ruling as yet another example of our nation's judicial system pushing back against the Trump administration's unconstitutional effort to silence all those who speak out against Israel's genocide in Gaza, and against our government's unconscionable complicity with that genocide. Mahmoud Khalil's unlawful and cruel detention deprived him of his liberty and of being with his wife when she gave birth to their first child. This government's war on First Amendment rights must be challenged by all Americans who value free speech and the Constitution."
Yet while Farbiarz's injunction offers hope to Khalil and his supporters, it does not yet guarantee Khalil's freedom. Farbiarz gave the administration until 9:30 am Friday morning to appeal the ruling, after which time it would take effect.
There is a potential opening for the administration to continue to fight Khalil's release.
As Farbiarz noted, the Trump administration also alleges that Khalil falsified his green card application by omitting his previous work at the Syria Office at the British Embassy in Beirut and with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. However, the judge argued that it was unlikely that this was the underlying cause for Khalil's detention.
"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. And that strongly suggests that it is the secretary of state's determination that drives the petitioner's ongoing detention—not the other charge," Farbiaz wrote in granting the injunction.
Still, The New York Times reported that it was "not clear that [Khalil] would be released on Friday if the government were to argue that those allegations were, in fact, the reason for his detention."
Khalil's legal team and family vowed to keep working for his release.
"Today was the first step to justice, but we will not stop fighting until Mahmoud is home with his wife and child," Dratel & Lewis associate Amy Greer said.
Noor Abdalla concluded, "I will not rest until Mahmoud is free, and hope that he can be with us to experience his first Father's Day at home in New York with Deen in his arms."
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Mahmoud Khalil Team Files FOIA Request to Expose Trump Collusion With Anti-Palestinian 'Agents of Repression'
One attorney for the targeted U.S. resident accused the doxxing groups of "weaponizing inflammatory rhetoric and conflating criticism of Israel with hate speech in order to chill activism for Palestinian rights."
May 29, 2025
Mahmoud Khalil's legal team on Thursday demanded records from the federal government to expose the Trump administration's "collusion with anti-Palestinian doxxing groups" that have worked to get people including their client deported from the United States.
“For years, these anti-Palestinian doxxing groups have served as agents of repression, weaponizing inflammatory rhetoric and conflating criticism of Israel with hate speech in order to chill activism for Palestinian rights," said Ayla Kadah, an attorney and justice fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), one of the groups representing Khalil, in a statement.
"Now, evidence seems to point to the Trump administration colluding with them as they escalate their crusade to target noncitizens for detention and deportation, with Mahmoud Khalil serving as their latest target," Kadah continued. "Mahmoud deserves answers, and so does the public."
"Evidence seems to point to the Trump administration colluding with them as they escalate their crusade to target noncitizens for detention and deportation."
Khalil is a legal permanent resident of Palestinian origin and a former Columbia University student organizer who has been in federal immigration custody since being accosted by plainclothes agents with his pregnant wife, Noor Abdalla, outside their New York City apartment in March. Abdalla, a U.S. citizen, gave birth to their son while her husband remained detained in Louisiana.
So far, the Trump administration has maintained its effort to deport Khalil over his on-campus activism against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip, claiming that despite his green card, he can be removed from the country because U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has "reasonable grounds to believe that Khalil's presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences."
CCR sent the 15-page records request to the U.S. departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice, and State, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The group also publicly released the document, which states that "Khalil has long been targeted by anti-Palestinian organizations, including individuals and groups who have sought his deportation or later taken credit for his arrest and detention."
"Days prior to his arrest by ICE, he sought Columbia University protection from these hostile groups, seeing that the groups were calling for the federal government to effectuate his deportation," notes the Freedom of Information Act filing. "In this FOIA request, Khalil seeks information that would illuminate the reported origins of his targeting and the bases of the Rubio determination."
"Specifically, he seeks information that would document and expose the reported collaboration between federal officials and private, anti-Palestinian organizations who have identified, doxxed, and reported him and others for purposes of securing the deportation of student activists advocating on behalf of Palestinian human rights," the document says.
The filing lists "the most prominent groups" subject to the FOIA request—Betar USA, CAMERA, Canary Mission, Capital Research Center, Columbia Alumni for Israel, Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus, Middle East Forum, and Shirion Collective—and details their targeting of Khalil, his university, and other individuals dealing similar cases, including Badar Khan Suri, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Rümeysa Öztürk, who have all been released from ICE custody recently.
"The correlation is clear, and not a coincidence: To date, not a single reported visa revocation and detention of an individual based on pro-Palestine activism occurred absent prior doxxing by one of these groups."
"Patterns of arrests and detention by ICE and DHS strongly suggest that these federal agencies are acting at the encouragement of the groups," the document says. "The groups also appear to be coordinating amongst themselves and amplifying each other's efforts to solicit federal agencies to punish individuals for protesting for Palestinian rights."
"These groups often take credit for ICE and DHS's adverse actions against those they have identified or reported, further corroborating the connection between the groups' targeting and the agencies' punitive actions," the filing adds. "The correlation is clear, and not a coincidence: To date, not a single reported visa revocation and detention of an individual based on pro-Palestine activism occurred absent prior doxxing by one of these groups."
The filing was first reported by Zeteo. A State Department spokesperson told the outlet, "Given our commitment to and responsibility for national security, the department uses all available tools to receive and review concerning information when considering visa revocations about possible ineligibilities."
CCR's request for records came a day after U.S. District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey ruled that Rubio likely violated constitutional law in his attempt to use Section 1227 of the U.S. Code to deport Khalil. Despite this, the judge declined to release Khalil on bail or to move him to a facility in New Jersey, closer to his family.
In response to Wednesday's ruling, Khalil's legal team said that "we will work as quickly as possible to provide the court the additional information it requested supporting our effort to free Mahmoud or otherwise return him to his wife and newborn son."
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Judge Rules Trump Admin's Detention of Mahmoud Khalil 'Likely' Unconstitutional
"Every day Mahmoud spends languishing in an ICE detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, is an affront to justice, and we won't stop working until he is free," said Khalil's legal team.
May 29, 2025
Former Columbia University student protester Mahmoud Khalil remained in detention in Louisiana Thursday even after a ruling by a federal judge who found that his imprisonment by Trump immigration officials is "likely" unconstitutional—but his attorneys expressed hope that the decision brought Khalil a step closer to being reunited with his wife and newborn son.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey ruled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has likely violated constitutional law in his attempt to use Section 1227 of the U.S. Code to remove Khalil from the United States.
Rubio first claimed that Khalil's involvement in student protests supporting Palestinian rights last year threatened U.S. foreign policy interests, and then alleged that Khalil committed fraud by not disclosing information about his past work with the Syria Office at the British Embassy in Beirut and with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an agency that has long received U.S. funding to provide aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Calling the administration's pursuit of Khalil's deportation "unprecedented," Farbiarz wrote, "The issue now before the court has been this: Does the Constitution allow the Secretary of State to use Section 1227, as applied through the determination, to try to remove the petitioner from the United States? The court's answer: likely not."
"If Section 1227 can apply, here, to the petitioner, then other, similar statutes can also one day be made to apply," the judge added. "Not just in the removal context, as to foreign nationals. But also in the criminal context, as to everyone."
But Farbiarz called on Khalil's legal team to provide more information pertaining to the government's accusations against him regarding his immigration application, and declined to issue a preliminary injunction to release Khalil on bail—or to move him from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Jena, Louisiana to one in New Jersey where he would be closer to his wife and son.
The judge wrote that his finding "does not entitle [Khalil] to a preliminary injunction. He has not put before the court evidence as to the various other things he must prove... before an injunction might issue... The court will give the petitioner a chance to quickly fill out the record, and for the respondents to then weigh in."
Khalil is being represented by groups including the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU of New Jersey, and several legal firms. His legal team said that Farbiarz "held what we already knew: Secretary Rubio's weaponization of immigration law to punish Mahmoud and others like him is likely unconstitutional."
"We will work as quickly as possible to provide the court the additional information it requested supporting our effort to free Mahmoud or otherwise return him to his wife and newborn son," said the team. "Every day Mahmoud spends languishing in an ICE detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, is an affront to justice, and we won't stop working until he is free."
Khalil was informed by immigration agents who detained him outside his Columbia University-owned apartment in March that his green card had been revoked, before they took him in an unmarked vehicle to a detention center in New Jersey. He was then transferred 1,400 miles away to Jena where he's been separated from his legal counsel as well as his family
An immigration judge in Louisiana ruled last month that the administration can pursue Khalil's deportation. The case in New Jersey is challenging his detention on the grounds that his constitutional free speech and due process rights have been violated.
Several other international students who have been detained for supporting Palestinian rights—and opposing Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza—have been released from detention in recent weeks.
Elora Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said Farbiarz's ruling was "a victory in terms of the court recognizing that the targeting of Mahmoud Khalil based on his protected speech violates the due process protection he should be afforded under the Constitution."
"People around the world are watching to see what is happening in Mahmoud Khalil's case as one of the most prominent examples of the Trump administration taking actions against international students in the United States," Mukherjee told The Washington Post. "And I think the biggest takeaway that people will see is that he is still in detention in Louisiana, separated from his wife and his newborn baby and having missed his graduation. It is a symbol of the hostility of the executive branch to international students and lawful permanent residents right now."
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