(Reuters) -Lawyers for Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil asked a judge on Friday to order that he be released from a Louisiana immigration detention center on Friday, after the judge ruled the Trump administration could not use U.S. foreign policy interests to justify his confinement.
Newark, New Jersey-based U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz on Wednesday ruled that the administration could not use U.S. foreign policy to justify its detention of Khalil, a 30-year-old Palestinian who came to the U.S. lawfully on a student visa and later obtained lawful permanent residency.
But the judge put his decision on hold until Friday at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) to give President Donald Trump’s administration the chance to appeal. Trump, a Republican, has pledged to deport foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations that swept Columbia and other U.S. universities in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza.
That deadline passed without the government filing a notice of appeal.
“This Court should order his release forthwith,” Khalil’s lawyers wrote in a letter to Farbiarz.
Khalil, a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, was detained by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan on March 8. He has since been held in immigration detention in Louisiana.
The administration says it revoked Khalil’s green card under a little-used provision of U.S. immigration law allowing the deportation of any non-citizen whose presence in the country is deemed by the U.S. secretary of state to be adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests. Khalil’s lawyers said his arrest and attempted deportation violated his right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
Farbiarz had previously blocked the administration from deporting Khalil while his challenge to the constitutionality of his arrest played out. On May 28, the judge ruled that the foreign policy provision cited by the Trump administration was so vague that it was likely unconstitutional, and on Wednesday he ruled that the administration could not use that provision to justify Khalil’s detention.
The U.S. government also has said Khalil should be deported because he withheld information from his application for a green card, which he has denied.
Farbiarz wrote that lawful permanent residents are rarely detained on that basis.
Khalil’s U.S. citizen wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, gave birth to the couple’s first child while Khalil was detained in April.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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