WASHINGTON - A federal court in the United States has dismissed an effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to dismiss Palestinian rights activist Mahmoud Khalil’s legal challenge against his detention and deportation.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and legal permanent resident, has been held by the government since March 8 in a push to deport him over his participation in campus protests for Gaza last year.
On Wednesday, Judge Jesse Furman ruled that Khalil’s legal request for a judicial review against his detention, known as a habeas corpus petition, must proceed. The Trump administration had asked the court to reject the challenge.
Furman noted that Khalil is arguing that the effort to deport him violates his rights to free speech and due process, which are guaranteed under the US Constitution.
“These are serious allegations and arguments that, no doubt, warrant careful review by a court of law; the fundamental constitutional principle that all persons in the United States are entitled to due process of law demands no less,” Fruman wrote in his ruling.
He described Khalil’s ordeal as an “exceptional case”.
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However, the judge decided that his New York-based court cannot adjudicate the case, saying that the matter should be transferred to New Jersey, where Khalil was held when the challenge was filed.
The government sought to move the case to Louisiana, a Republican-dominated state, where Khalil is currently detained in an immigration enforcement facility.
Furman said that his previous order barring the government from deporting Khalil must remain in place while the case is under review. But he did not rule on the activist’s request to be released on bail, leaving the matter to the New Jersey court that will oversee the petition.
He ordered the court clerk to transfer the petition “immediately”, but there is no exact date for when the New Jersey Court will rule or schedule hearings on the case.
The Trump administration is pushing to deport Khalil under a rarely used provision of an immigration law that gives the secretary of state power to remove any non-citizen whose presence in the US is deemed to have “adverse foreign policy consequences”.
The US government has not charged Khalil with a crime. Instead, US officials have accused him of “activities aligned to Hamas”.
But Khalil’s supporters say he engaged in peaceful protests against Columbia University’s ties to the Israeli military as part of the wave of campus demonstrations that swept the country last year.
Khalil’s detention has raised concerns about Trump’s willingness to scuttle free speech in his crackdown on Palestinian rights advocacy in the US.
The activist, whose wife is a US citizen and eight months pregnant, was arrested late at night by immigration enforcement agents and transferred to two different facilities without his family or lawyers being notified.
Critics have likened his treatment to forced disappearances by authoritarian governments.
“The Trump administration is seeking to send a message with the unlawful and deplorable disappearance of Mr Khalil,” Hannah Flamm, acting senior policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), told Al Jazeera last week.
“This is not the first occasion when the US government has weaponised immigration enforcement to separate families and to terrorise communities. But Mr Khalil’s arrest represents a significant departure and profound violation of American free speech rights.”
Khalil released a statement from his confinement late on Tuesday, describing himself as a political prisoner.
“My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night,” he wrote. I aje
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