\n<\/p>\n
Attorneys for Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University student who last year became the face of the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, will ask the US supreme court to intervene after a federal appeals court opened the door for the government to once again detain and ultimately deport him.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the third circuit court of appeals upheld a January ruling by a three-judge panel, which had reversed a lower-court decision ordering Khalil\u2019s release on bail last June. The ruling marks the latest chapter in Khalil\u2019s months-long challenge of the government\u2019s campaign against him. The appeals court\u2019s decision marks a significant setback for him, but his lawyers insist he cannot be deported \u2013 for now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope the supreme court will recognize how dangerous the third circuit\u2019s decision was, not just for Mahmoud but for other non-citizens the administration has its vengeful sights upon,\u201d said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and part of Khalil\u2019s legal team. \u201cThat ruling greenlights holding someone in prolonged, brutal detention conditions without access to meaningful judicial review in order to punish them and deter others from dissenting from US foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The third circuit judges were split on the decision \u2013 with six voting against and five in favor of Khalil\u2019s request to reverse the earlier ruling.<\/p>\n
In a dissenting opinion, three of the judges who voted against argued that the majority\u2019s ruling \u201cignores canons\u201d, \u201cstrains precedent\u201d and \u201cimperils the civil liberties of [Khalil] and similarly situated noncitizens\u201d.<\/p>\n
Khalil\u2019s attorneys said that they planned to ask the court to pause the decision\u2019s implementation so they can bring the matter to the US supreme court.<\/p>\n
Khalil is also fighting the government\u2019s attempt to remove him in a separate legal case moving through the immigration court system. Earlier this month, his legal team filed a motion asking an immigration appeals court to reopen and throw out that case after evidence emerged that the Trump administration had improperly fast-tracked it and tried to predetermine its outcome.<\/p>\n
Still, Friday\u2019s ruling is a notable loss for Khalil and sets a dangerous precedent for others seeking to challenge their detention in federal court at a time when the Trump administration has politicized the immigration court system in unprecedented ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the administration wants to do is litigate his removability in the immigration court process \u2013 what I call the president\u2019s courts,\u201d said Azmy. \u201cIt\u2019s a total sham process that\u2019s designed to carry out their plan to deport him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khalil, a US permanent resident who is married to a US citizen, was detained in his Columbia University housing in March 2025 \u2013 the first of several foreign students and scholars the administration targeted over their pro-Palestine advocacy. He had been a lead negotiator between the university and student protesters during the spring 2024 encampments.<\/p>\n
Khalil has remained defiant throughout the ordeal and since being released last year has become a far more prominent advocate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe administration wants to arrest, detain and deport me to intimidate everyone speaking out for Palestine across this country, and they are willing to violate longstanding US rules and procedures to do it,\u201d he said recently. \u201cBut no lies, corruption, or ideological persecution will stop me from advocating for Palestine and for everyone\u2019s right to free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khalil missed the birth of his first son while in detention in an Immigrationa nd Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana last year. His lawyers argued that he would suffer \u201cirreparable harm\u201d if forced to remain in detention while his immigration case proceeded \u2013 and a federal court ultimately sided with him and found that he was likely to succeed in his claim that the government\u2019s actions had been unconstitutional. An appeals court struck down that decision in January after it concluded that the federal judge who ordered his release did not have jurisdiction over the case, which it said needed to remain in the immigration court system.<\/p>\n
Attorneys for Khalil warn that the panel\u2019s decision effectively blocks anyone in immigration proceedings from challenging their detention on first amendment grounds until those proceedings have run their course \u2013 \u201cno matter how long they may take or how unconstitutional the basis for their detention\u201d, they wrote in a recent statement.<\/p>\n
The judges in the dissent agreed. \u201cThe Judiciary \u2018serves as an inseparable element of the constitutional system of checks and balances\u2019 protecting civil liberties and checking legislative and executive discretion,\u201d they wrote. \u201cWe cannot fulfill that role if we write ourselves out of relevance and leave the Executive Branch to check itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump administration originally maintained that Khalil \u2013 as well as other foreign scholars it detained over their pro-Palestine advocacy \u2013 posed a threat to the government\u2019s foreign policy objectives in fighting antisemitism, citing a little-used immigration statute from the McCarthy era. So far, that claim has not been tested in court, with the government choosing to fight Khalil\u2019s appeal on jurisdictional grounds instead.<\/p>\n
Government lawyers later argued that Khalil\u2019s deportation would be justified on the grounds that he omitted details in his green card application \u2013 claims his lawyers have vehemently rejected.<\/p>\n
Courts have expressed reservations over the government\u2019s argument and last fall, a federal judge in Boston ruled in a blistering opinion in a related case that the detentions of pro-Palestinian students had been unconstitutional and designed to chill speech.<\/p>\n
During that trial, immigration officials involved in the detentions revealed that government officials had relied on dossiers compiled by far-right, pro-Israel groups to target those students.<\/p>\n
While the administration, and the president himself, called Khalil a \u201cRadical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student\u201d and a \u201cterrorist sympathizer\u201d, he has been a nuanced voice in his criticism of Israel and has repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism, saying it has \u201cno place\u201d in the Palestine solidarity movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up in a community that valued human rights and valued principles beyond religion, beyond race,\u201d he said in a recent interview with the Jewish publication the Forward. \u201c\u201cI know it might sound like a very ideal utopia, but this is what we should aspire for: to get a place where there\u2019s no more conflict, no more killing in that place and it\u2019s open to anyone who wants to call it their home or their Holy Land.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Attorneys for Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University student who last year became the face of the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, will ask the US supreme court to intervene after a federal appeals court opened the door for the government to once again detain and ultimately deport him. On Friday, the third circuit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[11947,160,4280,852,24577,851,24578,571,159,1500],"class_list":{"0":"post-49665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-attorneys","9":"tag-court","10":"tag-deportation","11":"tag-khalil","12":"tag-khalils","13":"tag-mahmoud","14":"tag-paves","15":"tag-ruling","16":"tag-supreme","17":"tag-turn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}