US judge says Trump can’t cite foreign policy as grounds to detain Columbia activist
Court delays release of Mahmoud Khalil until Friday to give time to appeal, notes government is also arguing he was employed by UNRWA but omitted this on visa application
The Trump administration cannot use US foreign policy interests to justify its detention of Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a judge ruled on Wednesday, but stopped short of ordering Khalil’s immediate release.
US District Judge Michael Farbiarz in Newark, New Jersey, said his ruling would not take effect until Friday morning local time to give the administration the chance to appeal.
Farbiarz wrote that the administration was violating Khalil’s right to free speech by detaining and trying to deport him under a little-used provision of US immigration law granting the US secretary of state the power to seek the deportation of any non-citizen whose presence in the country is deemed adverse to US foreign policy interests.
“The petitioner’s career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled,” Farbiarz wrote. “This adds up to irreparable harm.”
The judge also barred the administration from deporting Khalil on the grounds that his presence was allegedly adverse to US foreign policy.
“This is the news we’ve been waiting over three months for,” Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, said Wednesday. “Mahmoud must be released immediately and safely returned home to New York to be with me and our newborn baby, Deen.”
Farbiarz noted in his ruling that the government has also argued it is detaining and deporting Khalil in part because of alleged omissions on his green card application.
But the judge said evidence presented by his attorneys showed lawful permanent residents are virtually never detained for such a thing.
Khalil, in his statement to the court last week, also disputed that he wasn’t forthcoming on the application.
For example, he said he was never employed by or served as an “officer” of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, as the administration claims, but completed an internship approved by the university as part of his graduate studies.
Neither the State Department nor the Justice Department, which represents the administration in court, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Khalil was arrested on March 8 after the State Department revoked his green card. He has since been held in immigration detention in Louisiana.
Khalil was the first known foreign student to be arrested as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s bid to deport foreign students who took part in pro-Palestinian protests that swept US college campuses after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military offensive against the Gaza-ruling terror group.
Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia, but the Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country. They say such protesters express views that are antisemitic and pro-Hamas.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.