A federal judge in New Jersey ruled that President Donald Trump’s effort to deport anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil is most likely unconstitutional on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz handed down the ruling, though he did not go so far as to order Khalil’s release. Farbiarz argued that the Trump administration’s deportation order was likely to be dismissed as “unconstitutionally vague.”
“The district court held what we already knew: Secretary Rubio’s weaponization of immigration law to punish Mahmoud and others like him is likely unconstitutional,” lawyers for Khalil said after the ruling.
Khalil, who was approved for deportation by a U.S. immigration judge, has argued that his free speech rights were being “eroded” by the Trump administration.
Khalil is accused of being a ringleader for anti-Israel protests at Columbia University.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attorneys have argued that Khalil’s free speech claims were a “red herring,” saying that the 30-year-old green card holder lied on his visa applications.
Khalil, they said, willfully failed to disclose his employment with the Syrian office in the British Embassy in Beirut when he applied for permanent U.S. residency.
Khalil has Algerian citizenship through his mother, but was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.
Khalil is married to Noor Abdalla, a U.S. citizen. They met in 2016 while volunteering in Lebanon. They married in 2023, and she was eight months pregnant at the time of his arrest.
Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
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