Mahmoud Khalil Asks Supreme Court to Hear His Case and Keep Him Out of ICE Custody

Mahmoud Khalil asked the US Supreme Court on Monday to take up his case and overturn an appeals court ruling that could put him back in immigration custody while the Trump administration tries to deport him.

Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and lawful permanent resident, filed the petition on October 19. His lawyers want the court to reverse a decision by the Philadelphia based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that federal immigration law barred a district judge from ordering his release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody last year.

A free speech test

His lawyers argue the Supreme Court should make clear that immigration law does not stop noncitizens from going to a federal district court when they say the government detained them to punish speech protected by the First Amendment.

"If the Trump administration can punish someone for their pro-Palestine speech, this or any future administration can punish anyone for any speech," Khalil told reporters on Monday.

If the appeals court ruling stands, Khalil faces re-arrest and deportation. In April, the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected his challenge to an immigration judge's order that he be removed to Algeria or Syria. For now, a lower court order barring the government from detaining him again stays in place until the Supreme Court rules, and a separate appeal of the removal order is still pending.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the administration acted within its authority in Khalil's case and encouraged him to leave the country on his own.

Arrest, detention and release

Khalil was a leading figure in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia over Israel's war in Gaza. He is an Algerian citizen who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. Immigration agents arrested him in March 2025 in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan, even though he held a green card. His wife and their 1 year old son are US citizens.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to deem Khalil removable, citing what the government called antisemitic protests and disruptive activities at Columbia in 2024 that fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students.

Khalil was held at a detention center in Louisiana. In June 2025, US District Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey ordered the Department of Homeland Security to release him, after 104 days in custody.

A split among appeals courts

In January, a 2 to 1 panel of the 3rd Circuit overturned that release order. The panel said that under immigration law, Khalil's claims could not be heard in district court and instead had to be raised in an appeal of a removal order from an immigration judge. The full appeals court later declined to reconsider the case, and Khalil turned to the Supreme Court.

Federal appeals courts are split on the question. Some have let district judges hear challenges like Khalil's, while others say the claims must first go through immigration courts, which are run by the Justice Department and are not part of the federal judiciary. Last month, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling in a similar case involving Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University scholar who was also detained by ICE and ordered released.

The justices have not said whether they will hear Khalil's case.