NEW YORK — (AP) — A federal judge who barred the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil declined Friday to order his release from an immigration detention center, saying the former Columbia University student hadn’t yet proven he was being held illegally.
The ruling is a setback for Khalil, who was detained in March. He had appeared to be close to winning his freedom after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz held that the government’s initial effort to deport him on foreign policy grounds was likely unconstitutional.
The judge had given the Trump administration until Friday morning to appeal an order that could have led to Khalil's release.
But the government filed court papers saying it believed it could continue detaining Khalil based on its secondary rationale for expelling him from the U.S. — an allegation that he lied on his green card application.
Farbiarz, who sits in New Jersey, wrote in his Friday ruling that Khalil’s lawyers hadn’t presented enough evidence that detention on those grounds was unlawful and suggested that Khalil’s next step could be to ask for bail from an immigration judge in Louisiana.
One of Khalil's lawyers, Amy Greer, criticized the Trump administration's legal maneuvering as “cruel, transparent delay tactics” meant to keep her client away from his wife and newborn son ahead of their first Father’s Day as a family.
“Instead of celebrating together, he is languishing in ICE detention as punishment for his advocacy on behalf of his fellow Palestinians,” she said in a statement. "It is unjust, it is shocking, and it is disgraceful.”
Khalil has previously disputed the notion that he omitted information on his application.
In a filing last week, he maintained he was never employed by or served as an "officer" of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, as the administration claims, but completed an internship approved by the university as part of his graduate studies.
Khalil said he also stopped working for the British Embassy in Beirut in December 2022, when he moved to the U.S., despite the administration’s claims that he had worked in the embassy’s Syria office longer.
Earlier Friday, Khalil's lawyers asked the judge to order his release, saying he had satisfied all of the court’s requirements and that the government’s lawyers had missed a morning deadline to challenge the judge’s Wednesday ruling.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is among the groups representing Khalil, also released a video Friday featuring actors Mark Ruffalo, Mahershala Ali and other celebrity fathers reading a letter Khalil wrote to his newborn son from jail ahead of his first Father's Day on Sunday.
“One day you might ask why people are punished for standing up for Palestine,” read Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello. “These are hard questions, but I hope our story shows you this: The world needs more courage, not less. It needs people who choose justice over convenience.”
Khalil was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
His was the first arrest under President Donald Trump's crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said Khalil must be expelled from the country because his continued presence could harm American foreign policy.
Khalil’s lawyers say the Trump administration is simply trying to crack down on free speech.
Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The international affairs graduate student served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists.
He wasn’t among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics.
The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country as it considers their views antisemitic.
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