Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention
[June 21, 2025]
By SOPHIE BATES and PHILIP MARCELO
JENA, La. (AP) — Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released Friday
from federal immigration detention, freed after 104 days by a judge’s
ruling after becoming a symbol of President Donald Trump ’s clampdown on
campus protests.
The former Columbia University graduate student left a federal facility
in Louisiana on Friday. He is expected to head to New York to reunite
with his U.S. citizen wife and infant son, born while Khalil was
detained.
“Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue,” he said outside the
facility in a remote part of Louisiana. “This shouldn’t have taken three
months.”
The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil over his role in
pro-Palestinian protests. He was detained on March 8 at his apartment
building in Manhattan.
Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it
would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue
detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been
accused of any violence.
“Petitioner is not a flight risk, and the evidence presented is that he
is not a danger to the community,” he said. “Period, full stop.”
During an hourlong hearing conducted by phone, the New Jersey-based
judge said the government had “clearly not met” the standards for
detention.
The government filed notice Friday evening that it's appealing Khalil's
release.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social
platform X that the same day Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release, an
immigration judge in Louisiana denied him bond and "ordered him
removed.” The decision was made by Judge Jamee Comans, who is in a court
located in the same detention facility from which Khalil was released.
“An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide
if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained,” the post said.
Khalil was the first person arrested under Trump’s crackdown on students
who joined campus protests against Israel’s devastating war in Gaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil must be expelled
from the country because his continued presence could harm American
foreign policy.
The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in
such demonstrations should be deported as it considers their views
antisemitic. Protesters and civil rights groups say the administration
is conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to silence
dissent.
Farbiarz has ruled that the government can't deport Khalil on the basis
of its claims that his presence could undermine foreign policy. But the
judge gave the administration leeway to continue pursuing a potential
deportation based on allegations that he lied on his green card
application, an accusation Khalil disputes.
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Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student
Mahmoud Khalil, center, speaks after his release from federal
immigration detention in Jena, La., Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP
Photo/Matthew Hinton)
The international affairs graduate student isn’t accused of breaking any
laws during the protests at Columbia. He served as a negotiator and
spokesperson for student activists and wasn’t among the demonstrators
arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak
publicly made him a target of critics.
The judge agreed Friday with Khalil’s lawyers that the protester was
being prevented from exercising his free speech and due process rights
despite no obvious reason for his continued detention. The judge noted
that Khalil is now clearly a public figure.
Khalil said Friday that no one should be detained for protesting
Israel's war in Gaza. He said his time in the Jena, Louisiana, detention
facility had shown him “a different reality about this country that
supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice.”
“Whether you are a U.S. citizen, an immigrant or just a person on this
land doesn’t mean that you are less of a human,” he said, adding that
“justice will prevail, no matter what this administration may try to
portray” about immigrants.
Khalil had to surrender his passport and can't travel internationally,
but he will get his green card back and be given official documents
permitting limited travel within the country, including New York and
Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances
and Washington to lobby Congress.
In a statement after the judge's ruling, Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla,
said she can finally “breathe a sigh of relief” after her husband's
three months in detention.
“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump
administration has brought upon our family, and so many others,” she
said. “But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to
be reunited with our little family.”
The judge’s decision comes after several other scholars targeted for
their activism have been released from custody, including another former
Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University
student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan
Suri.
___
Marcelo reported from New York. Jennifer Peltz contributed from New
York.
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