By Nate Raymond
May 22 (Reuters) – A lawyer for Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil vowed on Friday to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal appeals court declined to reconsider a ruling that opened the door to President Donald Trump’s administration re-arresting and deporting the pro-Palestinian activist.
The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals split 6-5 along ideological lines to leave in place a ruling holding that U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz lacked jurisdiction when he ordered Khalil’s release from immigration detention last year.
Khalil had appealed after a three-judge 3rd Circuit panel in a 2-1 ruling decided that his claims could not be heard by a district court judge like Farbiarz.
Khalil was among the most prominent of a number of foreign students detained last year by Trump administration immigration authorities after engaging in pro-Palestinian activism on their college campuses.
If the 3rd Circuit’s ruling is allowed to take effect, Khalil could face the prospect of being arrested again and deported, after the Board of Immigration Appeals in April rejected his appeal of an immigration judge’s order that he be removed to Algeria or Syria.
Baher Azmy, a lawyer for Khalil at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said he plans to ask the Supreme Court to overturn what he called a “dangerous” decision by the 3rd Circuit.
“That ruling greenlights holding someone in prolonged, brutal detention conditions without access to meaningful judicial review in order to punish them and deter others from dissenting from U.S. foreign policy,” Azmy said.
To avoid the possibility of Khalil being detained in the interim, his lawyers swiftly asked the 3rd Circuit to not let its decision take formal effect as scheduled on May 29 while his Supreme Court appeal plays out.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, through a spokesperson welcomed Friday’s 3rd Circuit decision, and said it “will work to enforce Khalil’s lawful removal order.”
“We would encourage him to use the CBP Home app and self-deport now before he is arrested, deported, and never given a chance to return,” the DHS spokesperson said.
Khalil, a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, is an Algerian citizen who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. He was arrested in March 2025 by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan despite having the status of a lawful permanent resident, or green card holder.
He walked out of a Louisiana immigrant detention center in June after the New Jersey-based Farbiarz, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, ordered the Department of Homeland Security to release Khalil from custody.
In January, the 2-1 panel of the 3rd Circuit overturned Farbiarz’s decision, saying that under a law called the Immigration and Nationality Act, Khalil’s claims could not be addressed through a district court and instead could be raised in an appeal of a removal order from an immigration judge.
Six judges appointed by Republican presidents, including five by Trump, on Friday voted against revisiting that decision.
Five judges appointed by Democratic presidents favored rehearing the case, including U.S. Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, who said the court’s decision handcuffed the judiciary’s ability to protect the civil liberties of non-citizens like Khalil.
“We cannot fulfill that role if we write ourselves out of relevance and leave the Executive Branch to check itself,” wrote Krause, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; additional reporting by Luc Cohen and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Will Dunham)
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