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A federal judge on Friday ordered the US government to release former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from the Immigration Detention Center, where the Trump administration tried to support his role, but from early March.
In a ruling from the New Jersey bench, US District Judge Michael Fabiartz said it was “very, very rare” for the government to continue detaining legal US residents who were not accused of violence, as they are unlikely to flee.
“The petitioner is not a flight risk and the evidence presented is that he is not a risk to the community,” he said. “Full stop for the period.”
Later in the one-hour hearing held over the phone, the judge said the government “evidently fails to meet” the standards for detention.
Khalil was able to leave the Louisiana country detention center by Friday evening. This comes when Trump administration lawyers say they are hoping to release him.
He surrenders his passport and cannot travel internationally, but he is given official documents allowing limited travel within the country, including New York and Michigan.
Halil was the first to be arrested under President Donald Trump’s crackdown on students who participated in the campus protests against Israel’s devastating war in Gaza. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Halil must be expelled from the country as his ongoing presence could harm American foreign policy.
Farbeers gave it a room to continue pursuing potential deportation based on allegations that he lied to his green card application, although the government could not deport Halil for these reasons. Trump administration lawyers repeated the charges at a court hearing Friday. It is a charge of Khalil’s conflict.
When announcing the ruling Friday, the judge agreed with Khalil’s lawyers that despite the obvious reasons for the detention of the protest leader, he was prevented from exercising his rights to free speech and legitimate processes. The judge noted that Halil was clearly a public figure.
Halil’s lawyers ask him to be released on bail or at least move from Louisiana to New Jersey, allowing him to approach his wife and newborn son, both US citizens.
Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdallah, said that after her husband’s three months in detention, she could finally “sigh in relief.”
“This ruling knows that the Trump administration has not begun to deal with the injustice that has brought to our families and many others,” she said in a statement provided by Halil’s lawyers. “But today we are back in New York and celebrating Mahmoud to reunite with our small family.”
The judge’s decision comes after several other scholars targeting their behaviorism have been released from detention. This includes another former Palestinian student from Mohsen Mahdawi of Colombia. Rumeysa Ozturk, student at Tufts University; Badar Khan Suri, scholar at Georgetown University;
Halil was detained on March 8th for participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration at his apartment in Manhattan.
Graduate students in international affairs have not been accused of breaking the law during the protests in Colombia. He served as a negotiator and spokesman for student activists and was not one of the protesters who were arrested, but his prominence in his news coverage and willingness to speak made him a critical target.
The Trump administration argued that non-citizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country considering the views of anti-Semitics.
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