BREAKING: Judge Denies Mahmoud Khalil Release, Siding with Trump Admin’s 11th Hour Argument
The development punctures hopes of Khalil’s release after three months in ICE detention.
On Friday, a federal judge declined to release Palestinian Columbia University student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention.
The decision came after the Trump administration changed its legal strategy at the eleventh hour. On Wednesday, US District Judge Michael Farbiarz barred the Trump administration from continuing to detain or attempt to deport Khalil based on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s determination that Khalil risked US foreign policy, saying such detention is causing Khalil “irreparable harm.” He gave the government until 9:30 am ET on Friday to appeal or respond.
Shortly after the deadline, Khalil’s legal team filed a letter asking for clarity and an official sign-off for Khalil’s release. The judge responded by giving the government until 1:30 pm ET on Friday to respond to Khalil’s team’s filing.
Minutes before the deadline, the Trump administration responded, arguing that Khalil could still be detained for charges the government threw against him after they arrested him, including that he allegedly intentionally misrepresented his employment history on his green card application. Khalil’s lawyers have argued such a charge would not warrant mandatory detention in this manner.
Just over two hours later, Judge Farbiarz, a Biden appointee, sided with the Trump administration, accepting the government’s claim that, actually, it is also detaining Khalil on the second charge.
Khalil's team and family members had hoped he might be able to be free for his first Father's Day as a dad. He wrote a letter to his son, Deen, whose birth he was forced to miss.
"Deen, it was not a gap in the law that made me a political prisoner in Louisiana," Khalil wrote. "It was my firm belief that our people deserve to be free, that their lives are worth more than the televised massacre we are witnessing in Gaza, and that the displacement that began in 1948 and culminated in the current genocide must finally end. This mere belief is what made the state scramble to detain me."
Amy Greer, an associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis and part of Khalil’s legal team, called Khalil’s continued detention “unjust,” “shocking,” and “disgraceful.”
“Mahmoud Khalil was detained in retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights. The government is now using cruel, transparent delay tactics to keep him away from his wife and newborn son ahead of their first Father’s Day as a family,” she said in a statement. Instead of celebrating together, he is languishing in ICE detention as punishment for his advocacy on behalf of his fellow Palestinians.”
Warrantless Arrest
Khalil, a green card holder, was detained by masked immigration agents in the lobby of his Columbia-owned building in March. Khalil’s arrest was the first in a string of abductions that expanded into a much larger operation against student protesters and international students generally.
The Trump administration targeted Khalil on the spurious and previously little-tested grounds that he was compromising US foreign policy – a determination made personally by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Khalil, as with other students and academics targeted in this way, was not accused of committing an actual crime.
The judge’s decision on Friday comes after the release of several other high-profile targets of the Trump administration, including Mohsen Mahdawi, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Badar Khan Suri.
In early March, plainclothes agents arrested Khalil, telling him his visa had been revoked. He responded that he had a green card. The agents, confused, then said that was revoked too. His attorney, Amy Greer, who was on the phone amid the chaos, demanded a warrant. Agents hung up on her instead.
With no recourse or procedure, ICE agents then took Khalil over 1,000 miles away from his home to a detention facility in Louisiana.
The Trump administration later admitted immigration agents did not have a warrant when they detained Khalil. The government claimed it had the authority to arrest him anyhow, because “it was likely he would escape before they could obtain a warrant,” and because he was a “flight risk.” But security footage shows that Khalil was cooperating the entire time, even seeming to casually chat with the arresting agents.
During his time in detention, Khalil missed the birth of his first baby, as well as Columbia’s graduation. ICE rejected his attempts to be detained closer to his wife and new child.
Now Khalil will remain in detention, as Judge Farbiarz recommends he seek relief in the immigration courts – a system overseen by the same administration that detained him.
If you are a student affected by this or someone who works in or around the US government with relevant information about these developments, please contact me via email or Signal (premthakker.35).
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional details.
Check out more on Mahmoud Khalil’s case:
Shame!
Omg. This is horrifying. Just awful. 🥺