NEW YORK: A US judge on Wednesday denied a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to dismiss detained Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to the legality of his arrest by immigration agents over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests but moved the case to New Jersey. Manhattan-based US District Judge Jesse Furman agreed with the Justice Department that he did not have jurisdiction over the case. Furman ordered the case moved to federal court in the state of New Jersey, where Khalil was held at the time his lawyers first challenged his arrest in New York.

Furman did not rule on Khalil’s bid to be released on bail from detention. Khalil, 30, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on March 8 outside his university residence in Manhattan. His lawyers have said he was targeted in retaliation for his role advocating for Palestinian rights, meaning the arrest violated free speech protections under the US Constitution’s First Amendment. Khalil called himself a political prisoner

on Tuesday, in his first direct comments since his detention. The detention of Khalil, a US permanent resident, has been condemned by multiple human rights groups as an assault on free speech and due process. Over 100 Democratic lawmakers from the US House of Representatives have questioned the detention’s legality in a letter to the Trump administration .

“My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner,” Khalil said in a letter made public on Tuesday. “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night,” Khalil said in the letter, referring to the latest renewed Zionist strikes on Gaza that killed over 400 Palestinians.

His arrest sparked protests in different US cities, including in New York City on Tuesday when hundreds gathered at Times Square demanding his release. Khalil said in Tuesday’s letter his arrest was indicative of anti-Palestinian racism. The government has not elaborated how Khalil could harm US foreign policy. Trump, without evidence, has accused him of supporting Hamas. Khalil’s legal team says he has no links to Hamas.

The case has become a flashpoint for the Republican president’s pledge to deport some non-US citizens who took part in the protests against the Zionist military campaign in Gaza that swept American college campuses including Columbia. Trump’s administration has said these protests included support for Hamas and “antisemitic” harassment of Jewish students. Student protest organizers have said criticism of the Zionist entity is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.

Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent, entered the United States on a student visa in 2022, married his American citizen wife in 2023, and secured lawful permanent residency – known as a green card – last year. Khalil became one of the most visible leaders of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protest movement while completing coursework for a master’s degree in public administration. He is due to graduate in May.

In ordering his removal, the administration has cited a little-used provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act allowing the deportation of any lawful permanent resident whose presence in the country the secretary of state has “reasonable grounds to believe” could harm US foreign policy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on March 16 that taking part in “pro-Hamas events” runs counter to US foreign policy.

Khalil’s lawyers have said their client has no ties to Hamas, and have said he acted as a “mediator and negotiator” during the protests. They also have said the administration is unlawfully targeting non-US citizens for removal based on protected speech, and asked Furman to immediately release Khalil. Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, is eight months pregnant with their first child and has not been able to travel to Louisiana to visit him.

Because the provision of the 1952 law used to justify Khalil’s deportation has been invoked so infrequently, it has been tested just once before, legal experts said. The late federal Judge Maryanne Trump Barry – Trump’s older sister – found the provision unconstitutional in the 1990s in a case involving a former Mexican official wanted on criminal charges in his home country. Barry said noncitizens in the United States legally could not be removed at the sole discretion of the secretary of state without a meaningful opportunity to be heard. The administration of former President Bill Clinton appealed that ruling and it was reversed on a technicality that did not address the law’s constitutionality. – Agencies