A New York federal judge on Wednesday transferred the case of a Columbia University graduate detained by the Trump administration this month to New Jersey, where his lawyers will continue their efforts to seek his release.

The order will not have any immediate effect on the detention status of the Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of pro-Palestinian protests on the university’s campus, who after his arrest was swiftly transferred from New York City to New Jersey and then to Louisiana. The Trump administration has sought to deport him, although he is a legal permanent resident who has not been accused of a crime.

The White House has said Khalil spread antisemitism and promoted literature associated with Hamas terrorists. Khalil’s lawyers deny that he has done so and say he is being retaliated against for promoting Palestinian rights and criticizing Israel, views that the Trump administration disagrees with.

Khalil’s legal team had been trying to move his case out of Louisiana since he was transferred there. Had his case been heard there, a conservative appeals court in New Orleans could have set a broad precedent for deportations.

The New York judge, Jesse Furman, ordered federal authorities not to remove Khalil from the country. On Wednesday, in moving the case to New Jersey, he left that order in place.

Khalil Expected to Stay in Louisiana

Khalil is expected to remain in Louisiana until a new judge weighs in.

Furman noted that Khalil’s lawyers had accused the government of punishing him for participation in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and that his First and Fifth Amendment rights had been violated.

“These are serious allegations and arguments that, no doubt, warrant careful review by a court of law,” he wrote. “The fundamental constitutional principle that all persons in the United States are entitled to due process of law demands no less.”

But the judge found that he did not have jurisdiction to decide those issues. The case, he wrote, belonged in New Jersey, where Khalil was in detention when his lawyers first filed their petition for his release.

Khalil’s lawyers, whose already-filed arguments accusing the government of retaliating against their client will now be heard across the Hudson River, greeted Furman’s decision as a partial victory.

“Now that we have ensured Mahmoud’s federal case remains in the New York City area, the next step is to bring Mahmoud home,” said one of his lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, a co-director of CLEAR, a legal clinic at the City University of New York.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, whose lawyers had been arguing the government’s case, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited a little-used law to try to justify Khalil’s detention. The measure says Rubio can initiate deportation proceedings against any noncitizen whose presence in the United States he can reasonably deem a threat to the country’s foreign policy aims. Rubio has said that it is a policy of the United States to restrict the spread of antisemitism.

Khalil, who lives in New York with his wife, an American citizen, was arrested on the evening of March 8. The agents who detained him told his wife and one of his lawyers, Amy Greer, that he was being taken to New York’s downtown immigration court.

At 4:40 a.m. the next day, Greer filed a petition seeking Khalil’s release in New York federal court, where an online locator said Khalil was still being held. But by that point, he had already been transferred to New Jersey.

Khalil’s lawyers have since argued that the government blocked his efforts to seek his release in the proper court. But Furman wrote that noncitizens arrested in New York City were frequently transferred to New Jersey for detention.

“The court cannot conclude that the government’s transfer of Khalil from New York to New Jersey was done to prevent his lawyer from promptly challenging his detention in federal court,” he wrote.

However, Furman, who said that it was “imperative” that the case be resolved quickly, also concluded that it would be inappropriate for Khalil’s case to be transferred to Louisiana as the government had requested. He said the Supreme Court had rejected a similar argument in a different case.

Requiring Khalil to seek his release anew in Louisiana, he wrote, “would also mean litigating far from his lawyers, from his eight-months-pregnant wife and from the location where most (if not all) of the events relevant to his petition took place.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jonah E. Bromwich/Bing Guan
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