Judge orders release of Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil

A federal judge has ordered Mahmoud Khalil released from federal immigration custody, more than three months after immigration agents arrested and detained him as the first student targeted for deportation by President Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters.

During a phone hearing on Friday, Judge Michael Farbiarz of the U.S. District Court for New Jersey said that the government’s attempt to continue to detain Khalil was “highly, highly, highly unusual.” Farbiarz recently ruled that Khalil’s arrest and detention over his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University was likely unconstitutional.

“There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish Mr. Khalil,” Farbiarz said in ordering Khalil’s release. “And of course that would be unconstitutional.”

Khalil has been held at an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana while he’s been fighting the government’s attempt to deport him. ICE agents arrested him at his New York apartment on March 8 after Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally ordered him deported by claiming that his activism threatened U.S. foreign policy goals of fighting antisemitism.

Khalil will be released on bail while the challenge to his deportation moves forward in federal court.

This is a developing story and will be updated.