A federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s requests to dismiss or move to Louisiana Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil’s case. Instead, the case will be transferred to New Jersey.
Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said he did not have jurisdiction because Khalil was in New Jersey when his lawyers first challenged his case. Justice Department attorneys argued the case should be transferred to Louisiana, and Khalil’s attorneys wanted it litigated in New York.
Furman retained his pause on Khalil’s deportation, which can be overruled by the New Jersey federal judge.
The New Jersey court will decide on Khalil’s argument that his arrest was unconstitutional and whether to move him from his current detention at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena.
After Khalil’s arrest in New York City, he was briefly held in New Jersey before being transferred to the Louisiana facility.
While it is a partial victory for the Justice Department that the case is not being transferred to New York, the greater hope was that it would be transferred to Louisiana, where the direct appeals court would be the 5th Circuit, one of the most conservative in the country.
Immigration authorities arrested Khalil, a permanent resident on a green card from Syria, on March 8. The Trump administration announced it would deport him over his involvement in Columbia University’s anti-Israel protests, alleging he led “activities aligned to Hamas.” Furman blocked his deportation.
The anti-Israel student group leader wrote a letter while detained in Louisiana, calling himself a “political prisoner” and encouraging more protests. Last week, a terrorist-tied group flooded Trump Tower in New York City to protest Khalil’s arrest.
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According to a senior homeland security official speaking with CNN, Khalil’s detention and possible deportation were based on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that holds that “an alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.”
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the arrest was made per President Donald Trump’s recent executive order targeting campus antisemitism.
