Judge opens door to releasing Mahmoud Khalil as soon as this week
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident, was detained in March, the first of a number of noncitizen student protesters to be arrested by the Trump administration as it began to scrutinize the pro-Palestinian protests that shook college campuses last year.
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To justify Khalil's arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited a rarely used law, saying that Khalil's presence in the United States threatens the country's foreign policy interest of preventing antisemitism.
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Farbiarz had already found that the law itself was likely to be unconstitutional. On Wednesday, he found that Khalil had shown he would be irreparably harmed were he not released.
Khalil's 'career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled — and this adds up to irreparable harm,' he wrote.
Though Farbiarz took longer than judges assessing similar cases to arrive at the conclusion that Khalil should not be detained, he also took a deeper look at the core constitutional issues informing the case, ultimately concluding that the law Rubio invoked could not be used as grounds for deportation.
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'Mahmoud has maintained since day 1 that the government should not be allowed to detain or deport him based on Rubio's say-so,' said Ramzi Kassem, a co-director of CLEAR, a legal clinic at the City University of New York that represents Khalil. 'Today, the court agreed, and ICE should release Mahmoud immediately so he can return to his home and family in New York City.'
Another of Khalil's lawyers, Marc Van Der Hout, said that his legal team would write to the Homeland Security Department asking for confirmation that Khalil was to be released Friday and for help coordinating arrangements to return him to his family.
But there is still an asterisk. Weeks into Khalil's detention, the Trump administration accused him of willfully failing to disclose his membership in several organizations when he applied for permanent residency, allegations that Khalil's lawyers have contested fiercely.
Farbiarz wrote that it was 'overwhelmingly likely' that Khalil would not be detained based solely on those allegations. But it is not clear that he would be released Friday if the government were to argue that those allegations were, in fact, the reason for his detention.
It is also plausible that the government could try to hasten Khalil's deportation on those or other grounds. Farbiarz noted that a bar he placed on deporting the Columbia graduate as related to the secretary of state's determination did not apply to efforts to remove Khalil from the country for other reasons.
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Still, the ruling marks a victory for Khalil, whose wife and infant son are US citizens. He has been held in Louisiana for three months without being accused of a crime. And though his arrest set off an outcry from Trump administration critics who feared the free speech and due process implications of the case, his name had begun to disappear from the headlines as he has languished in a Louisiana jail cell.
Khalil's wife, Noor Abdalla, said she was hoping he would be home to see his son this weekend. 'I will not rest until Mahmoud is free and hope that he can be with us to experience his first Father's Day at home in New York with Deen in his arms,' she said.
The White House has accused Khalil of 'siding with' the terrorist group Hamas, but the administration has not provided substantive evidence that he expressed support for the group.
Khalil's lawyers, on the other hand, have called attention to remarks he has made decrying antisemitism, including on CNN, where he said 'antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement.'
Several of Khalil's peers who also appeared to have been targeted by the Homeland Security Department for pro-Palestinian speech — including Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, and Mohsen Mahdawi — were released weeks ago.
And another legal permanent resident, Yunseo Chung, was never arrested at all after a federal judge barred authorities from detaining her on the same basis for which Khalil has been imprisoned.
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