A New Jersey judge ordered the feds on Friday to free anti-Israel Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil from a Louisiana immigration lock-up.
Newark federal Judge Michael Farbiarz said during the hour-long phone hearing that he found the Trump administration may be unfairly holding Khalil in retaliation for the former Ivy Leaguer being outspoken against Israel’s actions in the war with Gaza.
“There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish Mr. Khalil,” Farbiarz said, according to The New York Times. “And of course that would be unconstitutional.”
A federal judge says he’ll order activist Mahmoud Khalil to be released from immigration detention following his arrest for joining campus protests against Israel’s devastating war in Gaza. James Keivom
Khalil — a Syrian-born permanent resident — has been in custody since he was picked up by immigration authorities on March 8. He’s been fighting his detention, claiming it violates his right to free speech.
Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to keep holding Mahmoud given the fact he wasn’t likely to flee and hadn’t been charged with any violence.
Judge Michael Farbiarz made the ruling from the bench in federal court in New Jersey, and had ruled earlier that the government can continue to detain the legal U.S. resident. Senate Judiciary Committee
The judge added that Khalil is not a flight risk and “is not a danger to the community. Period, full stop.”
Khalil’s wife is an American citizen who gave birth to their son in April while Khalil was being held in a Louisiana facility.
Farbiarz said Khalil must be released from that facility by Friday.
Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post’s signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here!
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been seeking to boot Khalil from the country over his participation in the Columbia demonstrations, which he claimed — under a Cold War-era law — posed a threat to US foreign policy interests.
The judge previously shot down those arguments but allowed the feds to pursue the claim that Khalil may have lied on his green card application — an allegation which Khalil has vehemently denied.
Khalil was the main negotiator between Columbia United Apartheid Divest and — the group he led — and Columbia administrators during the encampment protests last year. And he was the first student to be targeted by the Trump Administration over allegations his protesting was antisemitic.
With Post wires