Mahmoud Khalil Freed after Months in ICE Detention over Pro-Palestine Activism
A federal judge has ordered the release of Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, held for over three months in ICE custody over his pro-Palestine activism.
Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old Columbia University graduate and prominent pro-Palestinian activist, was released from US immigration detention on Friday, more than three months after plainclothes ICE agents arrested him for his involvement in protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, US media reported.
Khalil had been held since early March at an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana. His case drew widespread attention as part of what rights groups have called a crackdown by the Trump administration on international student activists critical of Israeli policies.
A federal judge in Newark, Michael Farbiarz, ordered Khalil’s release, stating clearly: “He is not a danger to the community. Period, full stop.”
Speaking outside the detention center, Khalil emerged into the Louisiana heat accompanied by his attorneys. “Although justice prevailed, it’s very long overdue, and this shouldn’t have taken three months,” he told reporters. “I leave behind over 1,000 people in that facility—people who shouldn’t be there.”
Mahmoud Khalil is finally free 104 days after being abducted by ICE from his home in New York. The first thing he will do, he says, is “hug his wife and child,” whose birth he was forced to miss from behind bars. pic.twitter.com/eevtzy1dQy
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) June 21, 2025
Khalil also condemned the rationale for his detention. “Trump and his administration, they chose the wrong person for this. That doesn’t mean there is a right person. There is no right person who should be detained for actually protesting a genocide.”
His arrest had become the most high-profile of several immigration cases brought against pro-Palestinian international students. Khalil was the last to remain in custody, after others were either released or chose to leave the country amid deportation proceedings.
Khalil was never charged with a crime. Government officials accused him of posing a threat to national security and promoting antisemitism—claims his lawyers say were politically motivated and unsubstantiated.
Supporters, including Jewish students and faculty, filed court documents defending Khalil, citing his past statements calling for Jewish and Palestinian liberation to go “hand-by-hand.”
Judge Farbiarz had previously expressed concern over the legal basis for Khalil’s detention, which relied on a rarely invoked immigration provision allowing for deportation if an individual is deemed harmful to US foreign policy. The judge questioned the constitutionality of the provision and found that ICE had failed to meet the legal threshold to justify continued detention.
As a condition of his release, Khalil surrendered his passport and green card and is now restricted to traveling within a few states, including New York, where he will rejoin his wife, Noor Abdallah, and meet his newborn son, Deen, for the first time. “I can actually hug him,” he said.
After more than three months unjustly detained by the Trump administration, Mahmoud Khalil is finally free. He can go home, hug his wife, and hold his baby. He never should’ve been detained. As we celebrate his release, we will never stop working to defend human rights –… pic.twitter.com/jrc032iC5J
— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) June 21, 2025
In a statement, Abdallah said she could “finally breathe a sigh of relief,” but noted the ruling “does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others.”
Amnesty International USA welcomed the court’s decision, calling it “overdue,” and urged the Trump administration to ensure no further persecution of activists for exercising their constitutional rights.
Khalil’s immigration case is still ongoing, but Friday’s ruling is seen as a major legal blow to the administration’s broader efforts to target pro-Palestinian dissent on US campuses.
(PC, US Media)