Judge says Columbia protester must remain in US for now

NEW YORK: A US judge on Wednesday said Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil must remain in the United States for now, but moved his challenge to the legality of his arrest over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests to a court in New Jersey.

Manhattan-based US District Judge Jesse Furman denied a bid by the Trump administration to dismiss the case, but agreed with the Justice Department that he did not have jurisdiction because Khalil was held in New Jersey at the time his lawyers first challenged his arrest in New York.

The case has become a flashpoint for Republican President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport some non-US citizens who took part in the protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza that swept American college campuses including Columbia after the October 2023 raid by Hamas.

It will now be up to the New Jersey court to rule on Khalil’s bids to declare his arrest unconstitutional, and to be released on bail or moved. Khalil’s lawyers say his wife, an American citizen named Noor Abdallah, cannot visit him in Louisiana, where he is currently being held, because she is eight months pregnant with their first child.

Khalil’s lawyer Samah Sisay said in a statement on Wednesday that the government moved him to Louisiana to avoid having the case heard in New York or New Jersey. “Mr. Khalil should be free and home with his wife awaiting the birth of their first child, and we will continue to do everything possible to make that happen,” Sisay said.

Khalil, 30, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on March 8 outside his university residence in Manhattan. His lawyers have said that he was targeted in retaliation for his role in advocating for Palestinian rights, meaning the arrest violated free speech protections under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2025