After 104 Days, Khalil Walks Free: 'Justice Will Prevail'

UPDATE Jun 21, 2025 8:00 AM CDT

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released Friday from federal immigration detention, freed after 104 days by a judge's ruling after becoming a symbol of President Trump's clampdown on campus protests. The ex-Columbia University grad student left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday, per the AP. He's expected to head to New York to reunite with his US citizen wife and infant son, born while Khalil was detained. "No human is illegal," Khalil said after his release, per the New York Times. "Justice will prevail no matter what this administration may try." The Trump administration appealed the judge's ruling on Friday evening, with a Homeland Security rep noting, "An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained."

Jun 20, 2025 1:54 PM CDT

A federal judge on Friday ordered Mahmoud Khalil to be released on bail, rejecting the Trump administration's arguments that its allegations against the legal permanent US resident justify detaining him. Khalil, a leader in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University last year, hasn't been charged with a crime but has been held for three months. The government first argued it could do that under a rarely invoked law permitting deportations of people who oppose US foreign policy. It then said Khalil had made mistakes when applying for US citizenship last year, the New York Times reports. He added, per the AP: "This shouldn't have taken three months."

In a hearing in Newark, US District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that Khalil isn't a flight risk or a danger to the community. So he called it "highly, highly unusual" that the government is still trying to keep him locked up, per the Hill. Farbiarz said that suggests "there is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner—and, of course, that would be unconstitutional." Khalil was the first protesting student the administration went after, though many of them were legal permanent residents, per the Times. His lawyers contend he was arrested over his pro-Palestinian speech.

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The administration still can pursue deporting Khalil, though following the order would mean he's free to defend himself from his home in New York instead of in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in rural Louisiana, per the Wall Street Journal. Farbiarz denied the administration's request for a seven-day stay and said he'd write an order for Khalil's release on Friday. Khalil's wife and child, whose birth he missed while in detention, are US citizens.