A federal appeals court has ruled that a judge had no jurisdiction to order the release of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil from immigration detention, ruling in favour of the President Donald Trump administration’s bid to deport the pro-Palestinian activist.
The 2-1 ruling by a panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals opened the door to Khalil being re-arrested after it ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit he filed challenging his initial detention.
That holding came from US Circuit Judges Thomas Hardiman and Stephanos Bibas, both of whom were appointed by Republican presidents, who said that under the Immigration and Nationality Act, his claims needed to be heard through an appeal of a final order of removal from an immigration judge.
"The scheme Congress enacted governing immigration proceedings provides Khalil a meaningful forum in which to raise his claims later on in a petition for review of a final order of removal," they wrote in an unsigned opinion.
Khalil did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Khalil, a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel's Gaza genocide, was arrested on March 8 by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan.
First target
President Trump had called the protests anti-Semitic and vowed to deport foreign students who took part. Khalil became the first target of this policy.
While he was not among those arrested on campus, his role as a negotiator and spokesperson for student protesters made him a prominent target.
For more than three months, Khalil was held in detention in Louisiana after his arrest, when the administration invoked a rarely used immigration provision allowing deportation if the Secretary of State deems a noncitizen’s presence harmful to US foreign policy.
In June 2025, Judge Farbiarz blocked that attempt and ordered Khalil’s release, finding he was neither a flight risk nor a danger.
Khalil returned to New York to be reunited with his wife, a US citizen, and their newborn son.
In September, an immigration judge in Louisiana ordered Khalil to be deported to Syria or Algeria for allegedly failing to disclose details on his green card application, according to court documents filed.
Other students
A few days after Khalil's arrest, Trump's claim came due after another pro-Palestine scholar, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian researcher at Georgetown University, was arrested.
His attorney said he was arrested because of the Palestinian identity of his wife. He was released in May.
After the arrest of Suri, authorities went after another pro-Palestine student, Momodou Taal, asking him to turn himself in.
On March 25, Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University student, said she sued the Trump administration to stop her deportation from the US over her participation in a pro-Palestine protest last spring.
Also on March 25, Rumeysa Ozturk, who is a Tufts University PhD student, was kidnapped in broad daylight by US authorities over criticising Israel's carnage in Gaza.
On April 14, authorities arrested Mohsen Mahdawi during his citizenship interview before he was released on April 30.
