Mahmoud Khalil Asks Supreme Court to Review Deportation Case
publishers 88articles 156first reported 3 Oct, 09:00 UTCdeveloping since 3 Oct · 25 editions
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to review a ruling that could allow the Trump administration to detain and deport him.
The petition challenges a decision by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that federal immigration law prevented a lower-court judge from ordering Khalil’s release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. His lawyers argue that the Immigration and Nationality Act does not bar federal courts from considering habeas corpus claims alleging that detention is punitive or retaliatory. They also contend that applying the law to block review in Khalil’s case would violate the Constitution.
Khalil was arrested by ICE in March 2025 as the administration moved to detain and deport noncitizens involved in pro-Palestinian campus activism. He spent more than three months in custody before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release in June 2025. Khalil has maintained that his detention was retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment.
An immigration judge has ordered Khalil removed from the United States, and he is separately appealing that decision. His Supreme Court petition focuses on whether federal courts may intervene when a noncitizen claims immigration detention was used to punish protected speech. The justices have not yet decided whether to hear the case.
HOW THIS STORY WAS MADE
Written from 8 articles, 5 with the publisher's own text; 8 independent newsrooms once syndicated copies count as one; this version written 408 h after the record first saw the story; the editor kept it as written.
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- This version written
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