Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is released after spending over three months at a Louisiana detention center
Mahmoud Khalil – a Palestinian activist at the center of a long-running deportation fight – has been released from the Louisiana ICE detention center where he has spent more than three months after he was arrested outside his apartment on Columbia University's campus, his attorneys said.
Wearing a keffiyeh – a scarf seen as a symbol of Palestinian identity and resistance – a grinning Khalil pumped his fists as he walked out of the detention center Friday evening with one of his attorneys. Since March, he had been detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the rural town of Jena, Louisiana.
'Although justice prevailed but it's long, very long overdue, and this shouldn't have taken three months,' Khalil told reporters outside the detention center, adding he couldn't wait to reunite with his wife and newborn son.
Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release on bail Friday after finding he is not a flight risk or a danger to public safety. The judge said it's 'highly unusual' to be seeking his detention at this point.
The judge also cited several 'extraordinary circumstances' in Khalil's case that led him to order his release, including 'that there is a due process violative effort to punish' the Columbia University graduate who played a central role in negotiations on behalf of pro-Palestinian student protesters last year.
Khalil 'is not a flight risk, and the evidence that has been presented to me at least is that he is not a danger to the community, period, full stop,' Farbiarz said.
Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who is married to a US citizen and has not been charged with a crime, was one of the first arrestees in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown targeting student activism. As his case dragged on for over 100 days, several other student activists targeted for deportation by the Trump administration were released.
Khalil said he is leaving behind immigrants still in detention who are 'in a place where they shouldn't have been.'
'The Trump administration are doing their best to dehumanize everyone here,' he said. 'Whether you are a US citizen, an immigrant or just a person on this land, doesn't mean that you are less of a human.'
Khalil's wife, Noor Abdalla, said in a statement that she can 'breathe a sigh of relief' knowing that Khalil will be reunited with his family after missing the birth of his first child during months of detention at a facility over 1,000 miles away.
Judge Farbiarz previously ruled the government can't hold Khalil on the premise that his presence in the country is against the national interest, and on Friday found that Khalil doesn't need to be detained based on a second allegation against him that he failed to give required information in his application to become a legal permanent resident of the US.
'It's overwhelmingly unlikely, I found, that a lawful permanent resident would be detained on the remaining available charge' of failing to accurately fill out an immigration application, the judge said during Friday's hearing.
At the hearing, Khalil's attorneys argued that the court should allow him to be released on bail or transferred to a detention center closer to his wife and newborn son. They said the chilling effect of his detention has made it an 'extraordinary case.'
'I'm aware, of my 20 years of representing immigrants, of no other case where the government announced the day that it detained someone that they were detaining them in order to send a message that their arrest would be the first of many, that they were going after student protesters,' Khalil's attorney Alina Das argued before the court.
The federal government requested to temporarily halt Khalil's release, which the judge denied Friday.
'The court concluded there's no reason he should continue to be detained given the serious harms that are happening, the chill that is happening to his speech and other people's speech as a result of his detention,' one of his attorneys Baher Azmy told CNN Friday.
In response to the ruling, the Department of Homeland Security said that 'The Trump Administration acted well within its statutory and constitutional authority to detain Khalil.'
As the case played out in immigration and federal courts, the administration has argued that Khalil should be deported because his presence in the United States threatens the administration's foreign policy goal of combatting antisemitism. His lawyers contended that he was targeted for his pro-Palestinian views in violation of his constitutional rights.
'There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner. And of course, that would be unconstitutional,' Farbiarz said Friday.
As part of his release conditions, Khalil's lawyers were required to surrender his passport to immigration authorities in Louisiana and he was prohibited from traveling internationally, limiting travel to a handful of states. The government was ordered to provide Khalil his green card and a copy of his passport, allowing him to board a plane home to New York Friday.
Khalil will however not have to report to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, Magistrate Judge Michael Hammer ordered.
Though he's been released, Khalil's immigration proceedings will continue.
Azmy, Khalil's attorney, said the legal team learned immigration Judge Jamee Comans in Louisiana separately reaffirmed her removability ruling an hour into Friday's hearing. Khalil's lawyers will appeal her decision through immigration court – a long process his lawyers say will be easier now that he is out of detention.
'I'm confident that on appeal, we will prevail,' Johnny Sinodis, one of Khalil's attorneys, told CNN's Laura Coates Friday, noting Khalil's insistence throughout court proceedings that he 'committed no misrepresentation, no fraud' during his green card application.
Khalil's wife said the ruling doesn't begin to address the injustices their family has been through but said she's 'celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.'
The ruling comes exactly one week after Farbiarz ruled Khalil can remain in detention.
After the judge said the government could no longer hold Khalil on the premise that his presence in the country is against the national interest, attorneys for the Department of Justice said the judge's decision did not prevent them from continuing to hold Khalil on a second claim – that he failed to give required information in his application to become a legal permanent resident of the US.
The judge ruled last week that the administration's interpretation of his order is correct, keeping Khalil in detention.
Khalil's attorneys at the time accused the administration of using 'cruel, transparent delay tactics' to keep Khalil in custody.
Azmy on Friday said the charges still pending that Khalil made misrepresentations on his green card application are 'baseless' and will be litigated.
When asked if Khalil will continue to protest when released, Azmy said: 'He's a peace activist, he's an international human rights activist, and he's Palestinian, and I don't expect he will ever stop advocating for justice for Palestinian people and an end to their continued slaughter and starvation.'
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN's Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.
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