US District judge Michael Farbiarz of New Jersey on Wednesday granted Palestinian activist – and Columbia University graduate student – Mahmoud Khalil’s request for a preliminary injunction after concluding that he would continue to suffer irreparable harm if he remained detained.
The decision comes after the court decided last week that Khalil was likely to succeed on the merits of his constitutional challenge to the government’s detention and attempted deportation on foreign policy grounds.
The court also ruled that it was unconstitutional to detain and seek to deport someone purely for their advocacy, in his case on behalf of Palestinian human rights.
The government has until Friday morning to appeal the decision before Khalil must be released.
The preliminary injunction blocks the Trump administration from using the provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked to detain and attempt to deport Mahmoud and other students and scholars for their speech in support of Palestinian rights.
This is the first federal court to rule that Khalil and other noncitizens cannot be deported based solely on the so-called “foreign policy ground” of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a blow to the Trump administration’s attempt to suppress the speech of those who protest and speak out in support of Palestinian rights.
On 8 March, the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security arrested and detained Khalil for his advocacy for Palestinian rights at Columbia University and transferred him 1,300 miles away to a Louisiana detention facility.
