{"id":409337,"date":"2026-01-15T19:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T19:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409337\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T19:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T19:19:07","slug":"us-court-hands-trump-victory-against-pro-palestine-activist-mahmoud-khalil-courts-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409337\/","title":{"rendered":"US court hands Trump victory against pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil | Courts News"},"content":{"rendered":"

An appeals court panel in the United States has moved to dismiss a petition by Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil<\/a> challenging his detention and deportation, handing a boost to the administration of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

In a two-to-one ruling on Thursday, the judges concluded that the federal court that ordered Khalil\u2019s release last year lacked jurisdiction over the matter.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The ruling potentially enables the re-arrest of Khalil, who missed the birth of his first child while he was detained by immigration authorities last year. But the order does not go into effect immediately, and Khalil<\/a> has signalled that he plans to appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s ruling is deeply disappointing, but it does not break our resolve,\u201d Khalil said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe door may have been opened for potential re-detainment down the line, but it has not closed our commitment to Palestine and to justice and accountability. I will continue to fight, through every legal avenue and with every ounce of determination, until my rights, and the rights of others like me, are fully protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Palestinian activist, born in Syria and holding Algerian citizenship, is a lawful permanent resident and married to a US citizen.<\/p>\n

Khalil, who was pursuing a graduate degree at Columbia University, is one of dozens of foreign students that the Trump administration has targeted for deportation over their criticism of Israel.<\/p>\n

Rights advocates argue that the campaign violates US free speech rights<\/a> to stifle criticism of a foreign nation.<\/p>\n

Khalil\u2019s case was advancing on two tracks: one in federal court through a habeas corpus petition, which argued that his detention was illegal, and another in the administrative immigration courts, which challenged his removal.<\/p>\n

The appeals panel sided with the government\u2019s argument that only the immigration courts had jurisdiction over the matter, in accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).<\/p>\n

\u201cOur holdings vindicate essential principles of habeas and immigration law,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scheme Congress enacted governing immigration proceedings provides Khalil a meaningful forum in which to raise his claims later on\u2014in a petition for review of a final order of removal. We will therefore VACATE and REMAND with instructions to dismiss Khalil\u2019s habeas petition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immigration courts are part of the Justice Department, not the independent judicial branch, raising questions on whether Khalil can receive a fair hearing to his claims.<\/p>\n

An immigration judge has already sided<\/a> with the government in ruling that Khalil is deportable.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a seldom-used provision of the INA, asserting his authority to remove individuals he deems \u201cadverse foreign policy consequences\u201d for the US, to target Khalil and other pro-Palestine students.<\/p>\n

In the immigration court system, Khalil can appeal his case to a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) before the case can be taken to a federal court of appeals.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not clear whether the immigration system will allow Khalil to adequately make an argument about the violation of his constitutional rights, namely free speech \u2013 a possibility highlighted by Judge Arianna Freeman in her dissenting opinion.<\/p>\n

\u201cKhalil claims that the government violated his fundamental constitutional rights. He has also alleged\u2014 andproven \u2014irreparable injuries during his detention,\u201d Freeman wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrecedent and principles of statutory interpretation lead me to conclude that \u2018it is most unlikely that Congress intended to foreclose all forms of meaningful judicial review\u2019 over his claims,\u201d she added, quoting from a 1991 Supreme Court ruling.<\/p>\n

It is not clear how the ruling will immediately affect Khalil\u2019s broader case and the ordeal of other students like him. Federal courts have released several students \u2013 including Turkish scholar Rumeysa Ozturk<\/a> \u2013 based on habeas petitions.<\/p>\n

Last year, a judge ruled<\/a> in a separate civil case that the Trump administration\u2019s drive to deport pro-Palestine students based on their speech is illegal.<\/p>\n

Khalil\u2019s legal team can ask the entire Third Circuit Court to review the panel\u2019s decision before taking the came to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Bobby Hodgson, deputy legal director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is helping represent the Palestinian activist, said Thursday\u2019s ruling \u201cundermines the role federal courts must play in preventing flagrant constitutional violations\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration violated the Constitution by targeting Mahmoud Khalil, detaining him thousands of miles from home, and retaliating against him for his speech,\u201d Hodgson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cDissent is not grounds for detention or deportation, and we will continue to pursue all legal options to ensure Mahmoud\u2019s rights are vindicated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An appeals court panel in the United States has moved to dismiss a petition by Palestinian activist Mahmoud…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2302,12,3,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-409337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}