A Trump administration official has told lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil that the government has no immediate plans to release him, in spite of a judge’s order barring his detention on the grounds for which he was originally arrested.
The field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Orleans told the lawyers on Thursday, “I have no information that your client will be released or a time for that.” The judge, Michael E. Farbiarz, had opened the door to Mr. Khalil’s release as early as Friday morning.
Spokeswomen for the Homeland Security and Justice departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident, was prominent in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the school’s campus. He was arrested in March and transferred to Louisiana, where he has been held in a federal detention center for three months.
Shortly after his arrest, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, justified his detention by invoking a rarely cited law that he said allowed him to declare Mr. Khalil’s presence in the United States a threat to the country’s foreign policy goal of preventing antisemitism. Mr. Khalil’s lawyers have rejected that argument, pointing to comments their client made on CNN saying that “antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement.”
Judge Farbiarz found that the law Mr. Rubio invoked was likely unconstitutional, and on Wednesday ruled that the government could no longer detain Mr. Khalil under that justification.
The judge paused his own order until 9:30 am on Friday to allow the Trump administration time to appeal. But after the deadline had passed on Friday morning, it appeared the government had not done so.
Having seen no appeal, Mr. Khalil’s lawyers wrote a letter to Judge Farbiarz asking that he order their client’s release. The judge responded, asking that the government weigh in by 1:30 p.m.
It is not clear whether the government is actively violating Judge Farbiarz’s order. He had suggested that it might be able to continue detaining Mr. Khalil for reasons other than Mr. Rubio’s invocation, and it is possible that the Trump administration could seek to convince the court that there is some additional justification for doing so.
Two weeks after Mr. Khalil was first arrested, the government added new allegations to its case against him, accusing him of failing to disclose his membership in certain organizations when he applied for legal residency.
Mr. Khalil’s lawyers have said those allegations are false, and Judge Farbiarz wrote in his Wednesday decision that it was “overwhelmingly likely” that Mr. Khalil would not be detained on that basis alone.
Given that declaration, the judge would probably be skeptical were the Trump administration to put forward that rationale for continuing to detain Mr. Khalil.
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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