The graduate of Columbia University Mahmoud Khalil left a Louisiana immigrant detention center on Friday, hours after a judge ordering his release, a major victory for groups of rights that challenged one that described the unlawful target of Trump’s administration.
“Although justice prevailed,” he said after his release in the rural city of Jena, “he is long, very late. And that should not have taken three months.”
On March 8 Khalil, a prominent form in pre-Palestinian protests against the Israeli war in Gaza; He was arrested by immigration agents in his university lobby in Manhattan.
President Donald Trump; A Republican, called for anti -Semitic protests and pledged to release foreign students who participated. Khalil became the first goal of this policy.
After more than three months that are unjustly held by Trump’s administration, Mahmoud Khalil is ultimately free. He can go home, hug his wife and keep his baby. Never had to be held. As we celebrate its liberation, we will never stop working to defend human rights -… pic.twitter.com/jrc032ic5j
– International Amnesty USA (@amnestyusa) 21 June 2025
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government incorrectly confuses their criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza with anti -Semitism and their defense of Palestinian rights with the support of extremism.
After hearing oral arguments from lawyers about Khalil and the Ministry of Homeland Security, US Regional Judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, ordered DHS to release him out of prison for immigrants in Rural Louisiana until 6:30 pm. (2330 GMT) on Friday.
Farbiarz said the government had not made any attempt to refute the evidence provided by Khalil’s lawyers that it was not a risk of flight or a risk to the public.
“There is at least something for the underlying claim that there is an attempt to use immigration charge here to punish the report,” said Farbiarz, referring to Halil, as he ruled from the bench, adding that the punishment of someone on a political immigration.
Khalil is the last in a series of foreign pre-Palestinian students arrested in the US by March, who were subsequently released by judges.
Include Mohsen Mahdawi and Rumeysya ozturk.
A legal permanent resident, Khalil, says he is punished for his political speech, violating the first amendment of the Constitution.
Khalil condemned anti -Semitism and racism in interviews with CNN and other news agencies last year.
‘No one is illegal’
Noor Zafar, a senior personnel lawyer with the US Association of Civil Liberties, who supported the activist, said:
“Today’s decision emphasizes a vital principle of the first amendment: the government cannot abuse the migration law to punish the speech it discourages.”
The activist born in Syria plans to return to New York to be with his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, and their children’s son, who was born during Khalil’s 104 days.
“This decision is not beginning to deal with the injustices that Trump’s administration has brought to our family and so many others,” Abdalla said in a statement.
Mahmoud Khalil is free. Its release will lead to the liberation of all those held and imprisoned by the US in Palestine, ice facilities and prisons. And his courage may inspire us to remain firm in the fight against Palestinian liberation. pic.twitter.com/dax87bmzbj
– Jewish voice for peace (@jvplive) 21 June 2025
“Today we are celebrating Mahmoud returning to New York to reconnect with our little family and the community that has supported us since the day it was unfair to talk about Palestinian freedom.”
The White House has condemned the decision to release Khalil, saying that he must be deported for “harmful behavior on US foreign policy interests” and to obtain a fraudulent student’s view.
“There is no basis for a local federal judge in New Jersey – which has no jurisdiction – to order Khalil’s release from a detention facility in Louisiana,” White House spokesman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “We are waiting to be justified by appeal.”
The immigration process against Khalil continues.
Khalil, wearing a Kefffiyeh and increasing his right fist as he approached reporters outside the detention center, condemned what he named Trump’s racist migration policies.
He said he left hundreds of men housed in the detention center that should not be there.
“Trump’s administration does its best to weaken everyone here,” he said outside the gates of the installation. “No one is illegal. No man is illegal.”
Khalil said his time in detention had changed him.
“As soon as you get there, you see a different reality,” he said. “A different reality for this country that is supposed to lead human rights and freedom and justice.”
Separate charge
Louisiana’s immigration judge in his case had denied asylum request on Friday, ruling that he could be deported on the basis of the government’s allegations of immigration fraud and refused a hearing with a guarantee. Farbiarz’s decision gave the warranty request.
Like others who are experiencing expulsion, Khalil has food to attract the immigration system.
Farbiarz also examines Khalil’s challenge for his expulsion for constitutional reasons and has prevented officials from Khalil’s deportation while this challenge plays.
Earlier this month, Farbiarz ruled that the government had violated Khalil’s freedom rights, holding it by a minimally used law that awarded the US Secretary of State to seek expulsion of non -citizens whose presence in the country was considered to be disadvantageous in US foreign policy interests.
On June 13, the judge refused to order Khalil’s release from a Jena detention center following Trump’s administration, said Khalil was detained in a separate charge of excluding information from his application for permanent residence.
Khalil’s lawyers deny that the claim and say that people are rarely held in such categories.
On June 16, they called on Farbiarz to grant a separate request from his client to release him or her to bail out or move to a New Jersey reservation to be closer to his family in New York.
At the hearing on Friday, Farbiarz said it was “extremely unusual” for the government to imprison a immigrant accused of omissions in his application for a permanent residence.
Khalil, 30, became a permanent US resident last year, and his wife and newborn son are American citizens.
Trump’s lawyers wrote in a testimony on Tuesday that Khalil’s request for liberalization should be addressed to the judge who oversees the migration case, an administrative procedure for whether it may be deported and not to Farbiarz, who examines whether Khalil’s 8 March and the consequent detention was.
Reference by Jonathan Allen and Luc Cohen in New York. Additional references by Kathleen Flynn to Jena, and Andrew Hay and Kanishka Singh, Angela Christy. Edit by Nick Zieminski, David Gregorio and William Mallard
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