A federal judge ordered the release of Mahmoud Khalil from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana on Friday, three months after Khalil became a major target of the Trump administration's campaign to deport student visa holders for speaking in favor of Palestine and participating in pro-Palestine protests.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz of the District of New Jersey found that Khalil posed little to no flight risk and that his ongoing detention was unusual enough to plausibly suggest, as Khalil's lawyers argued, that he was being targeted for his political speech.
"There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish Mr. Khalil," Farbiarz said. "And of course that would be unconstitutional."
