The Legal Saga of Mahmoud Khalil
NEW YORK — The Manhattan federal judge overseeing the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and recent Columbia graduate student whom the Trump administration detained and is seeking to deport, on Wednesday transferred the case to New Jersey.
The case of Khalil, a Palestinian who led campus protests of the Israel-Hamas war, has sparked alarm over the fact that he hasn’t been charged with a crime. Rather, the Trump administration is seeking to deport him based on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s determination that Khalil’s “presence or activities” in the U.S. “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
The issue of where Khalil’s case is heard could prove critical to its outcome, particularly because the government is seeking to transfer it to the western district of Louisiana, where Khalil is now being held. Such a move would mean that any appeal would go to the conservative-leaning 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“At the heart of this case is the important question of whether and under what circumstances the Government may rescind a person’s lawful permanent resident status and remove him from the United States,” U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman wrote in a 33-page order.
But, Furman wrote, Khalil’s case shouldn’t be decided in Louisiana or in New York, where Khalil requested, but in New Jersey, because the government transferred him there in the early morning hours after he was detained, and that is where he was held when his lawyer filed a petition for his release at 4:40 a.m. on March 9.
Khalil was initially held in lower Manhattan on March 8 after Department of Homeland Security agents took him into custody in the lobby of his Columbia University apartment building. Several hours later, though, at 1:40 a.m., Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents transferred him to a detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, a move the government attributed to lack of space to hold him in New York.
Furman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, found that Khalil mistakenly filed in Manhattan through no fault of his own, but that his lawyer did so by “reasonably” relying on the information provided to her by the government.
“However unusual or disturbing the circumstances leading to Khalil’s arrest and detention may have been, his transfers from facility to facility — and, most critically, from 26 Federal Plaza to the Elizabeth Detention Facility on March 9, 2025 — do not appear to be that unusual,” Furman wrote.
Furman’s decision rebuffs the government’s effort to either dismiss Khalil’s effort to be released or transfer the case to the western district of Louisiana.
Furman wrote that the transfer of the case, rather than dismissal, is the route typically taken “in these circumstances” and is particularly appropriate in this case because dismissing it would override a previous order by Furman barring Khalil’s immediate deportation. The judge expressed concern that such a step “might allow the Government to frustrate Khalil’s effort to obtain judicial review of his claims by removing him from the country before a court could rule.”
“In many ways, this is indeed an exceptional case,” Furman wrote, “and there is a need for careful judicial review.”
Furman didn’t appear to entertain the option of transferring the case to Louisiana, writing that New Jersey “is the one and only district in which Khalil could have filed his Petition at the time this action commenced.”
The judge also noted that requiring Khalil to refile his petition for release in Louisiana would mean he would need to do so far from his lawyers and from his wife, a U.S. citizen who lives in New York and is eight months pregnant.
Furman, however, didn’t order Khalil to be physically moved out of the Louisiana detention facility, saying that would be a question for the New Jersey court.
