US judge orders release of pro-Palestinian advocate Mahmoud Khalil

A federal judge in the United States has ordered the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained since March by immigration authorities over his involvement in Palestinian rights protests at Columbia University.

The decision on Friday to grant Khalil bail came from a federal court in New Jersey, where Khalil’s lawyers are challenging his detention. It is separate from the legal push against his deportation that will continue to take place in immigration courts.

District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz later denied a government motion to temporarily halt his decision and reasserted that Khalil must be freed on Friday after finalising the terms of his release with a magistrate court.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been advocating on Khalil’s behalf, said he will be returning to New York to be with his family.

“This is a joyous day for Mahmoud, for his family, and for everyone’s First Amendment rights,” ACLU lawyer Noor Zafar said in a statement, referring to the US constitutional provision that protects free speech.

“Since he was arrested in early March, the government has acted at every turn to punish Mahmoud for expressing his political beliefs about Palestine. But today’s ruling underscores a vital First Amendment principle: The government cannot abuse immigration law to punish speech it disfavors.”

Khalil was the first known activist to be detained and have his legal immigration status revoked by the administration of President Donald Trump over involvement in student protests.

His case gained national attention, especially after the authorities denied him the chance to witness the birth of his firstborn son in April.

“After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” said Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, in a statement.

Khalil was not charged with any crime. Instead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has used a rarely used provision of an immigration law that allows him to order the removal of noncitizens if they are deemed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the US.

On Friday, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rejected Farbiarz’s decision to release Khalil, questioning his jurisdiction over immigration matters.

“An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained,” DHS said in a statement.

“This is yet another example of how out of control members of the judicial branch are undermining national security.”

The department did not elaborate on how allowing a legal permanent resident, who was never accused of a crime, to re-unite with his family affects national security.

The case Farbiarz is overseeing – known as a habeas corpus petition – argues that he is being illegally held by the government. It is not about his immigration status.

Federal district court justices often rule on the legality of the detention of migrants.

‘Poster child’ for free speech

Advocates have argued that the crackdown violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

The Trump administration has also been criticised for sending immigration authorities, sometimes masked and in plainclothes, to detain the students instead of allowing them to remain free while they challenge their deportation.

Several other students that the Trump administration is looking to deport have been ordered released by federal courts, including Turkish Tufts University scholar Rumeysa Ozturk and Columbia’s Mohsen Mahdawi.

Ozturk was detained over co-authoring an op-ed calling on her school to abide by the student government’s call for divesting from companies involved in Israeli abuses against Palestinians.

Khalil, who lived with his wife, a US citizen, in New York, has been detained in rural Louisiana – an effort that his supporters say aims to keep him away from his family and lawyers and transfer him to a more conservative rural jurisdiction.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said Khalil’s release is a “blow to the Trump administration”, which has insisted that he must remain in detention while making his immigration case.

“The bottom line in all of this is that he has really become sort of a poster child for those who are advocating for free speech in the United States,” Halkett said.