Federal judge transfers Columbia student activist’s case to New Jersey

A Columbia University student activist detained by the U.S. government over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations can challenge the legality of his detention, but the case should be heard in New Jersey, rather than in New York or Louisiana, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Mahmoud Khalil, 30, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8. He was held overnight at an immigration detention center in New Jersey before being moved to an immigration facility in Jena, Louisiana.

Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan called the legal challenge an “exceptional case” in need of careful legal review to determine whether the government “violated the law or exercised its otherwise lawful authority in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner.”

Furman said New Jersey was the appropriate venue because Khalil was detained there when his lawyers sued the government.

Federal authorities argued to move the case to Louisiana, saying Khalil was there because of a lack of available detention center beds in the metropolitan New York region and because of a bedbug infestation at a lockup in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Khalil’s lawyers said the transfer was a “retaliatory” action separating Khalil from his lawyers and an effort to find a jurisdiction where judges may be more favorable to the Republican administration’s unusual legal claims.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Government lawyers had said that if the case wasn’t sent to Louisiana, New Jersey was also a proper venue.

In a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, called Furman’s order a “first step.”

“His unlawful and unjust detention cannot stand. We will not stop fighting until he is home with me,” said Abdalla, a dentist and U.S. citizen who is pregnant with their first child.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited as grounds for Khalil’s deportation a rarely-used statute giving him sweeping power to deport those who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

The White House has accused Khalil of “siding with terrorists,” but has yet to provide support for the claim. President Donald Trump has described Khalil’s case as the “first of many to come.”

Khalil, an international affairs graduate student, had represented student activists in negotiations with Columbia University over protests of the war in Gaza. The Trump administration is acting quickly to make an example of Columbia as it demands stronger action against allegations of anti-Jewish bias on college campuses.