A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and former pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia University who has been detained for more than three months.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said Khalil is not a flight risk nor a danger to the community, “period, full stop.” Given those findings, and others, he said it’s “highly, highly unusual” that the government is still seeking Khalil’s detention.
“Together, they suggest that there is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner and, of course, that would be unconstitutional,” the judge said.
As part of Khalil’s conditions of release, he must also surrender his passport and travel documents, though the government will provide him a certified copy of his passport and green card. The judge also restricted his travel to four states and Washington, D.C.
Khalil’s detention was the first in the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign students with ties to pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses, whom Secretary of State Marco Rubio deemed threats to the nation’s foreign policy.
While in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, Khalil missed the birth of his first child.
His lawyers argued Friday that Khalil’s case is “unique” because of the government’s motivations for detaining him. Khalil has no criminal record but became the lead negotiator for Columbia’s pro-Palestinian encampment last spring.
“The purpose of every step that the government has taken in this case has been to ensure that Mr. Khalil remains locked away until he is deported, as retaliation and punishment for his speech,” said Alina Das, one of Khalil’s lawyers and co-director of New York University’s Immigrant Rights Clinic.
Farbiarz previously ordered Khalil’s release after determining that the government could no longer detain him over the claim he is a threat to the country’s foreign policy. However, after the Trump administration pivoted to say it could detain Khalil under a claim he kept some prior work off his application for permanent residency, the judge allowed his detention to continue.
The Justice Department argued that Khalil should remain detained until an immigration judge could weigh the matter, claiming the judge does not have jurisdiction.
But Farbiarz said he did not “think any of that is right” and suggested that it would be a “waste of time” to send the case to an immigration judge who would likely reach his same conclusion.
Other pro-Palestinian activists have also been released while their immigration cases play out in the courts.
Updated at 5:12 p.m. ET
