A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to release Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student activist at the center of a crackdown on campus activism.
Khalil has spent more than three months under the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at time span which the judge called “highly unusual” in a Friday order, NBC News reported.
New Jersey District Judge Michael Farbiarz, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, said Khalil poses no danger to the community, is not a flight risk, and should be allowed release on bail. He added, “Period, full stop.”
Khalil had his green card revoked and was arrested in front of his then-pregnant wife at their New York City apartment building March 8 before being disappeared to an ICE detention center in Louisiana.
Farbiarz previously ruled that the Trump administration, with the help of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had unconstitutionally used an obscure law to begin deportation proceedings against Khalil.
Under the law, the administration argued that Khalil’s comments about the Israel-Gaza war had undermined U.S. foreign policy efforts to prevent antisemitism.
Farbiarz argued that Khalil’s “career and reputation are being damaged” and his First Amendment speech rights are “being chilled.”
Khalil’s detention has generated widespread protests and criticism directed at Rubio and ICE Barbie Kristi Noem across Columbia University and Washington D.C. as the Trump administration has continued to wage war on activism on college campuses.
Khalil, who is Palestinian, grew up in a refugee camp in Syria and wrote that he never imagined that he would end up in detention after fleeing persecution in Syria and entering the United States on a student visa in 2022.
“As someone who fled persecution in Syria for my political beliefs, for who I am, I never imagined myself to be in immigration detention, here in the United States,” Khalil wrote in a sworn declaration in court filings, The Independent reported.
Khalil earned his master’s degree in public administration last year, but missed his graduation ceremony last month due to his detention. There are no criminal charges against him.
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