A federal appeals court on Thursday reversed a lower court decision that ordered the release of the former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from immigration detention, delivering the Trump administration a victory in its efforts to deport the pro-Palestinian activist.
A 2-1 panel of the Philadelphia-based third US circuit court of appeals ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit Khalil filed challenging his detention after finding that federal immigration law stripped the lower court of jurisdiction over his claims.
Khalil’s legal battle has been unfolding in two different courts. While an immigration court was considering his potential removal from the US, his lawyers simultaneously challenged the legality of his detention in federal court, arguing that it violated his constitutional rights. Thursday’s decision finds that the district court judge who ordered his release lacked the proper authority to consider Khalil’s release petition, concluding that the judge did not have subject-matter jurisdiction over the case.
Circuit judges Thomas Hardiman and Stephanos Bibas, appointed by presidents George W Bush and Donald Trump, respectively, said in their opinion: “The scheme Congress enacted governing immigration proceedings provides Khalil a meaningful forum in which to raise his claims later on – in a petition for review of a final order of removal.
“That scheme ensures that petitioners get just one bite at the apple – not zero or two,” adding: “But it also means that some petitioners, like Khalil, will have to wait to seek relief for allegedly unlawful government conduct.”
Hardiman and Bibas said Khalil’s case regarding his petition for release should have been addressed by an immigration court.
In her dissenting opinion, third circuit judge Arianna J Freeman said Khalil had alleged serious violations of his fundamental rights and had shown he suffered irreparable harm as a result of his detention.
“The government does not challenge the finding that Khalil’s speech was being chilled. Nor could it, as it presented no contrary evidence in the District Court,” Freeman wrote in her dissent.
She added: “Despite the irreparable injury from Khalil’s past detention and forthcoming re-detention, the majority opinion says Khalil’s claims are not now-or-never. It reasons that Khalil can seek review of the legal and factual questions later. But that is not the relevant question. Instead, we must ask whether the alleged harms can be remedied later.”
In a statement on Thursday, Khalil said: “Today’s ruling is deeply disappointing, but it does not break our resolve. The door may have been opened for potential re-detainment down the line, but it has not closed our commitment to Palestine and to justice and accountability. I will continue to fight, through every legal avenue and with every ounce of determination, until my rights, and the rights of others like me, are fully protected.”
Khalil is a permanent resident and recent Columbia University graduate who became a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian campus activism, helping to organise protests and encampments calling for a ceasefire and an end to US support for Israel.
He is married to an American citizen and has an American child. He was detained in March 2025, with the US government arguing that Khalil could be expelled because his views constituted a threat to US foreign policy.
According to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who said that Khalil’s activities were “otherwise lawful”, letting him stay in the US would undermine “US policy to combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States”.
His detention by immigration authorities last year drew widespread criticism from civil liberties groups who condemned the Trump administration for its crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech.
Last June, Khalil was released from immigration detention after being held for more than three months. Ordering his release, the federal judge Michael Farbiarz said Khalil posed no flight risk and was “not a danger to the community, period, full stop”, adding that the government had “clearly not met” the standard of detention.
In a statement on Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union commented on the federal appeals court decision, saying: “This ruling doesn’t go into effect immediately, and we will use every legal avenue possible to keep him free.”
“The opinion is about a technical question – the core issue of whether Mahmoud’s free speech rights were violated hasn’t yet been decided by a court. Dissent can’t be grounds for detention or deportation, and we’ll keep fighting to uphold that core principle,” it added.
Meanwhile, a Boston federal court is set to address remedies on Thursday after issuing a blistering decision in September ruling that the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Khalil and other pro-Palestinian scholars were unconstitutional and designed to “intentionally” chill free speech rights.
Judge William G Young, a Reagan appointee – who had called the case “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court” – ruled at the time that “non-citizens lawfully present here in the United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us”.
But the court has yet to determine how to hold the government to that decision and it is unclear how Thursday’s hearing, coming right after the appellate court decision in Khalil’s case, may affect the government’s ongoing efforts to deport him.
The Boston case challenged the government’s claim that it had the authority to deport non-citizens who have committed no crimes but whose presence it deems poses a threat to US foreign policy.
Reuters contributed reporting
