Mahmoud Khalil takes deportation fight to U.S. Supreme Court
Mahmoud Khalil has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review a court ruling that could open the way for his re-arrest and deportation.
His lawyers filed an emergency application asking the justices to immediately pause, or stay, a decision by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appeals court based in Philadelphia. A stay would keep that ruling from taking effect while the Supreme Court decides whether to hear his case. Al Jazeera
The appeals court had ruled that federal law should have barred lower courts from ordering Khalil's release from immigration detention in June 2025. It said questions about his detention should have been considered first in immigration court, which handles deportation cases, rather than in district court, the general federal trial court where his lawyers had won his release.
Khalil is a permanent U.S. resident and former Columbia University graduate student. He was arrested in March 2025 inside student housing where he lived with his wife, a U.S. citizen. He became the first student protester known to be targeted for pro-Palestinian views under President Donald Trump's second administration.
After his arrest, he was moved to immigration detention centers in New Jersey and then Louisiana, where he remained in custody for more than three months. Khalil was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and had served as a spokesperson for protest groups at Columbia.
In January, a panel of the Third Circuit reversed the lower-court order that had freed him, again leaving him vulnerable to arrest and deportation. In April, the Board of Immigration Appeals, the body that reviews decisions by immigration judges, denied his appeal and issued a final order of removal in his case. In May, the full Third Circuit voted six-to-five against reconsidering the panel's decision.
If the Third Circuit's decision holds, Khalil faces deportation to Algeria or Syria.
Khalil has argued that the attempt to deport him violates his free speech rights. The appeals court decision did not address that free-speech claim, leaving it unresolved as he turns to the Supreme Court. The New York Times
