US Judge Orders Release of Pro-Palestinian Activist Khalil

A US judge ordered on June 20 that Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil be released immediately from immigration custody, a major victory for rights groups that challenged what they called the Trump administration's unlawful targeting of a pro-Palestinian activist.

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NEW YORK -

Mr. Khalil, a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel's war on Gaza, was arrested by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan on March 8. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has called the protests anti-Semitic and vowed to deport foreign students who took part. Mr. Khalil became the first target of this policy.

After hearing oral arguments from lawyers for Mr. Khalil and for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), US District Judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, ordered DHS to release him from custody at a jail for immigrants in rural Louisiana by June 20.

Judge Farbiarz said the government had made no attempt to rebut evidence provided by Mr. Khalil's lawyers that he was not a flight risk or a danger to the public.

"There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner (Khalil)," the judge said as he ruled from the bench, adding that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter was unconstitutional.

Mr. Khalil was the latest in a string of foreign pro-Palestinian students arrested in the US starting in March who have subsequently been released by a judge. They include Mr. Mohsen Mahdawi and Ms. Rumeysya Ozturk.