Mahmoud Khalil is finally being released from ICE custody, more than three months after he was detained for his involvement in Columbia University’s pro-Palestine protests.
In a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz found that Khalil did not present a flight risk or a danger to his community, and that the government should release him on bail, according to Lawfare’s managing editor Tyler McBrien.
Farbiarz asserted that there were extraordinary circumstances surrounding Khalil’s detainment, including a chilling effect on his First Amendment rights. The judge also noted that Khalil’s invocation of a due process punishment claim, meaning that the government was attempting to use immigration law as a punitive measure, was substantial enough to warrant release.
The judge has asked the government to determine conditions for Khalil’s release, which has been set to take place later Friday.
Last week, Farbiarz ruled that the government could not deport the green card holder on the grounds that he was a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests or would create a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” if released. But Farbiarz then sided with the government, which argued that it could continue to detain Khalil because he had supposedly lied on his green card application.
The U.S. government alleged that Khalil purposefully failed to divulge his work as an unpaid intern for the United Nationals Relief and Work Agency and “withheld his membership of certain organizations” when applying for a visa, which was grounds for his removal. The U.S. government also claimed Khalil had failed to disclose his work with the Syria office in the British embassy in Beirut, as well as his involvement with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian activism group at his school.
Khalil entered the U.S. on a student visa in 2022 and later applied for permanent residency in 2024. He is married to an American citizen.
Across the country, federal judges have ordered the release of multiple students and faculty detained as part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. Khalil has remained in ICE custody since March, forcing him to miss the birth of his child.
This story has been updated.
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