U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz in Newark, New Jersey said he will issue a further order with next steps later on Wednesday. Khalil is currently in immigration detention in Louisiana. Khalil was arrested on March 8 after the State Department revoked his green card under a little-used provision of U.S. immigration law granting the U.S. secretary of state the power to seek the deportation of any non-citizen whose presence in the country is deemed adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests. Farbiarz wrote that Khalil was likely to succeed in his argument that the provision “is unconstitutional as applied to him.” Khalil was the first known foreign student to be arrested as part of President Donald Trump ’s bid to deport foreign students who took part in pro-Palestinian protests that swept U.S. college campuses after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military assault. Civil rights groups argue that Trump’s administration unlawfully detained the 30-year-old public policy student in retaliation for his criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The Hamas attack killed 1,195 people, according to Israeli tallies, and Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Khalil , a Palestinian who was born and raised in a refugee camp in Syria, entered the U.S. on a student visa in 2022 and became a lawful permanent resident last year through his wife Noor Abdalla, an American citizen. Khalil and his supporters say his arrest and attempted deportation are violations of his right to freedom of speech under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Federal judges in recent weeks have ordered another Palestinian Columbia student, Mohsen Mahdawi, and a Turkish student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, Rumeysa Ozturk, to be released from immigration detention while they challenge the government’s efforts to deport them.
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