A federal judge on Wednesday barred the Trump administration from continuing to detain Mahmoud Khalil under a rarely cited law invoked by the secretary of state — and suggested that Mr. Khalil could be released as early as Friday.
However, the judge, Michael E. Farbiarz, paused his own order to give the administration a chance to appeal, saying it would not go into effect until 9:30 a.m. on Friday. And he left a pathway for the government to continue to detain Mr. Khalil for other reasons, though he suggested he would be skeptical were authorities to do so.
It was not clear whether the administration would appeal the order. A Justice Department spokesman and a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident, was detained in March, the first of a number of noncitizen student protesters to be arrested by the Trump administration as it began to scrutinize the pro-Palestinian protests that shook college campuses last year.
To justify Mr. Khalil’s arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited the rarely-used law, saying that Mr. Khalil’s presence in the United States threatens the country’s foreign policy interest of preventing antisemitism.
Judge Farbiarz had already found that the law itself was likely to be unconstitutional. On Wednesday, he found that Mr. Khalil had shown he would be irreparably harmed were he not released.
Mr. Khalil’s “career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled — and this adds up to irreparable harm,” he wrote.
Though Judge Farbiarz took longer than judges assessing similar cases to arrive at the conclusion that Mr. Khalil should not be detained, he also took a deeper look at the core constitutional issues informing the case, ultimately concluding that the law Mr. Rubio invoked could not be used as grounds for deportation.
“Mahmoud has maintained since day one that the government should not be allowed to detain or deport him based on Rubio’s say-so,” said Ramzi Kassem, a co-director of CLEAR, a legal clinic at the City University of New York that represents Mr. Khalil. “Today, the court agreed, and ICE should release Mahmoud immediately so he can return to his home and family in New York City.”
But there is still an asterisk. Weeks into Mr. Khalil’s detention, the Trump administration accused him of willfully failing to disclose his membership in several organizations when he applied for permanent residency, allegations that Mr. Khalil’s lawyers have contested fiercely.
Judge Farbiarz wrote that it was “overwhelmingly likely” that Mr. Khalil would not be detained based solely on those allegations. But it is not clear that he would be released on Friday if the government were to argue that those allegations were, in fact, the reason for his detention.
It is also plausible that the government could try to hasten Mr. Khalil’s deportation on those or other grounds. Judge Farbiarz noted that a bar he placed on deporting the Columbia graduate as related to the secretary of state’s determination did not apply to efforts to remove Mr. Khalil from the country for other reasons.
Still, the ruling marks a victory for Mr. Khalil, whose wife and infant son are American citizens. He has been held in Louisiana for three months without being accused of a crime. And though his arrest set off an outcry from Trump administration critics who feared the free speech and due process implications of the case, his name has begun to disappear from the headlines as he has languished in a Louisiana jail cell.
The White House has accused Mr. Khalil of “siding with” the terrorist group Hamas, but the administration has not provided substantive evidence that he expressed support for the group.
Mr. Khalil’s lawyers, on the other hand, have called attention to remarks he has made decrying antisemitism, including on CNN, where he said “antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement.”
Several of Mr. Khalil’s peers who also appeared to have been targeted by the Homeland Security Department for pro-Palestinian speech — including Rumeysa Ozturk, Badar Khan Suri and Mohsen Mahdawi — were released weeks ago.
And another legal permanent resident, Yunseo Chung, was never arrested at all after a federal judge barred authorities from detaining her on the same basis for which Mr. Khalil was imprisoned.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts.
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