US judge extends ban on Columbia student's deportation

A US judge on Wednesday extended his order blocking federal authorities from deporting a detained Columbia University student in a case that has become a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s pledge to deport some pro-Palestinian college activists, Reuters has reported.

US District Judge Jesse Furman had temporarily blocked Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation earlier this week, and extended the prohibition on Wednesday in a written order following a hearing in Manhattan Federal Court to allow himself more time to consider whether the student’s arrest was unconstitutional.

Judge Furman also ordered that Khalil be allowed two hour-long private phone calls with his lawyers, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday, after Kassem said that Khalil’s sole phone call with a member of his legal team from detention in Louisiana so far was cut off prematurely and was on a line recorded and monitored by the government.

Even before Furman blocked it, there was no indication that Khalil’s deportation was imminent. He has the right to plead his case to avoid deportation before a separate judge in an immigration court, a potentially lengthy process.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says that Khalil, 30, is subject to deportation under a legal provision holding that migrants whose presence in the country are deemed by the US Secretary of State to be incompatible with foreign policy may be removed, according to a document seen by Reuters.

“The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,” read the DHS document, dated 9 March, ordering Khalil to appear before an immigration judge on 27 March. The document did not provide additional detail, and the DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

READ: Trump praises Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest as ‘first of many to come’

Khalil’s lawyers say that his arrest on Saturday by DHS agents outside his university residence in Manhattan was in retaliation for his outspoken advocacy against Israel’s military assault on Gaza following the Hamas-led cross-border incursion on 7 October 2023, and thus violated Khalil’s right to free speech under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.

“Mr Khalil was identified, targeted, detained and is being processed for deportation on account of his advocacy for Palestinian rights,” said Khalil’s lawyer Ramzi Kassem in court.

Brandon Waterman, a lawyer for the government, said that Khalil’s challenge to his arrest should be moved to New Jersey, where he was held when his lawyers first sought his release, or Louisiana, where he is currently being held.

Outside the Manhattan courthouse on Wednesday, Kassem told reporters that the legal provision that the DHS referred to was rarely used and was not meant to silence dissent.

In her first media interview, Noora Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, told Reuters after the hearing that she hoped her husband would be free and back in New York in time for the birth of their first child, due next month.

‘Khalil was kidnapped for standing up for his people’

The wife of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student who was forcibly taken by ICE from his New York City home on 8 March, described his arrest as ‘a kidnapping’, which has left… pic.twitter.com/l79ginkWDw

— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) March 13, 2025

“It’s been so hard not having him here,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotions and pain. He’s been there for me truly every step of the way.”

Khalil was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and went to the US on a student visa in 2022, becoming a permanent resident last year. He was a prominent member of Columbia’s protest movement against Israel’s genocidal offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza.

US President Donald Trump alleged on social media that Khalil supported Hamas, but his administration has not charged him with a crime and has not provided evidence to show Khalil’s alleged support for the movement, which is designated as a “global terrorist entity” by the US.

The Trump administration claims that pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, including Columbia, have included support for Hamas and anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students. Student protest organisers say criticism of Israel is being wrongly conflated with anti-Semitism.

“This is not about free speech,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters earlier on Wednesday during a trip to Ireland. “Being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down… If you told us that’s what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in.”

The case could ultimately test where immigration courts draw the line between protected free speech and alleged support for groups which the US designates as terrorists.

READ: ‘Weaponising anti-Semitism’? US targets 60 universities with funding cuts amid campus crackdown