Mahmoud Khalil is a free man Friday after a New Jersey judge ordered the Trump administration to release the anti-Israel Columbia University protester from a Louisiana immigration lock-up.
“My priority now is to get to my beautiful wife and precious son,” Khalil told reporters outside the La Salle Detention Facility in Jena, La. “We need to do that as soon as possible.”
Donning a green shirt and keffiyeh, and flanked by his lawyers, Khalil complained that his release “shouldn’t have taken three months.”
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 spent the last three months at the La Salle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana. AP“Although justice prevailed, it’s long, very long, overdue,” he said.
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.”
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.
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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.
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
Khali has been in custody since March 8, when he was apprehended by immigration officers. AP
Khalil claimed his arrest violated free speech. DAN ANDERSON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
“My priority now is to get to my beautiful wife and precious son,” Khalil told reporters. APFarbiarz said Khalil must be released from that facility by Friday.
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
