AP
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A federal appeals panel on Thursday reversed a decrease court decision that launched Mahmoud Khalil from an immigration jail, bringing the federal government one step nearer to detaining and finally deporting the Palestinian activist.
A 3-judge panel of the third US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia instructed the decrease court to dismiss Khalil’s habeas petition, a court submitting that secured his launch. The panel dominated the federal district court in New Jersey didn’t have jurisdiction over the matter as a result of immigration challenges are dealt with otherwise underneath the regulation.
In a 2-1 decision, the panel dominated that federal immigration legal guidelines require deportation challenges to be made by submitting a petition for evaluate of a ultimate order of elimination with a federal appeals court — not a lower-level district court.
“That scheme ensures that petitioners get just one bite at the apple—not zero or two,” the panel wrote. “But it also means that some petitioners, like Khalil, will have to wait to seek relief for allegedly unlawful government conduct.”
The regulation bars Khalil “from attacking his detention and removal in a habeas petition,” the panel added.
“We are disappointed by and strongly disagree with the majority’s opinion, but take heart in the powerful dissenting opinion and will continue to fight against his unlawful persecution and detention through all available legal avenues,” mentioned Khalil’s lawyer, Baher Azmy, in an announcement to NCS.
The decision marked a serious win for the Trump administration’s sweeping marketing campaign to detain and deport noncitizens who joined protests in opposition to Israel.
An outspoken chief of the pro-Palestinian motion at Columbia University, Khalil was arrested at his house on March 8, 2025. He then spent three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail, lacking the beginning of his firstborn son.
Federal officers have accused Khalil of main actions “aligned to Hamas,” although they haven’t offered proof to again up the declare and haven’t accused him of legal conduct.
The authorities has justified the arrest underneath a seldom-used statute that permits for the expulsion of noncitizens whose beliefs are deemed to pose a menace to US international coverage pursuits.
In June, a federal decide in New Jersey dominated that justification would probably be declared unconstitutional and ordered Khalil released.
President Donald Trump’s administration then appealed that ruling, arguing the deportation decision ought to finally fall to an immigration decide, slightly than a federal court. They have additionally accused Khalil of failing to reveal info on his inexperienced card utility.
Khalil has dismissed these allegations as “baseless and ridiculous,” framing his arrest and detention as a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
The appeals court decision comes as an appeals board within the immigration court system is weighing a earlier order from an immigration decide that discovered Khalil might be deported. His attorneys have argued that the federal order ought to take priority.
That decide has advised that Khalil might be deported to Algeria, the place he maintains citizenship by a distant relative, or Syria, the place he was born in a refugee camp to a Palestinian household.
His attorneys have mentioned he would face mortal hazard if he had been compelled to return to both nation.