A judge has ordered Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil to be released from immigration custody.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz granted Khalil bail, arguing that he was not a danger to the community and was therefore detained in a “highly unusual” manner, Fox News reported.
Khalil was detained for three months after being arrested at his apartment at Columbia University.
Justice Department attorneys wrote in court documents this week that Khalil was detained “because he is currently charged as removable for fraudulently or willfully misrepresenting material facts on his adjustment of status application.”
“After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” said Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, as per NBC News.
“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” she said. “But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.”
Upon Khalil’s arrest, President Donald Trump declared, “Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”
“Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again,” he wrote on social media. “If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply. Thank you!”
