US judge orders release of pro-Palestinian activist Khalil
Last edited Fri Jun 20, 2025, 03:04 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Reuters
June 20, 2025 2:39 PM EDT Updated 8 mins ago
NEW YORK, June 20 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ordered on Friday that Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil be immediately released from immigration custody, a major victory for rights groups that challenged what they called the Trump administration's unlawful targeting of a pro-Palestinian activist.
Khalil, a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel's war on Gaza, was arrested by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan on March 8. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has called the protests antisemitic and vowed to deport foreign students who took part, and Khalil became the first target of this policy.
After hearing oral arguments from lawyers for Khalil and for the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, ordered DHS to release him from custody at a jail for immigrants in rural Louisiana. Farbiarz said the government had made no attempt to rebut evidence provided by Khalil's lawyers that he was not a flight risk nor a danger to public.
"There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner (Khalil)," Farbiarz said as he ruled from the bench, and punishing someone over a civil immigration matter is unconstitutional, he said.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judge-orders-release-pro-palestinian-activist-khalil-2025-06-20/
Article updated.
Original article -
NEW YORK, June 20 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ordered on Friday that Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil be released from immigration custody, a major victory for rights groups that challenged what they called the Trump administration's unlawful targeting of a pro-Palestinian activist.
Khalil, a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel's war on Gaza, was arrested by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan on March 8. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has called the protests antisemitic and vowed to deport foreign students who took part.
Khalil condemned antisemitism and racism in interviews with CNN and other news outlets last year. Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States, says he is being punished for his political speech in violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, ruled on June 11 the government was violating Khalil's free speech rights by detaining him under a little-used law granting the U.S. secretary of state power to seek deportation of non-citizens whose presence in the country was deemed adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests. But the judge declined on June 13 to order Khalil's release from a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, after President Donald Trump's administration said Khalil was being held on a separate charge that he withheld information from his application for lawful permanent residency.
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