Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention

Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is seen at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

NEW YORK — NEW YORK - 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.

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.

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.

By Philip Marcelo.

Marcelo reported from New York. Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.