“We hope the Supreme Court will recognize how dangerous the Third Circuit’s decision was, not just for Mahmoud but for other noncitizens the administration has its vengeful sights upon.”
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University Gaza camp agitator and graduate arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to appeal his immigration case to the Supreme Court in an effort to halt deportation proceedings against him.
On Friday, a federal appeals court declined to reconsider Khalil’s case, prompting a spokesperson for Khalil to announce his legal team would seek review from the Supreme Court. The 31-year-old was arrested last year, and the Trump administration has accused him of antisemitism tied to his involvement in anti-Israeli protests at Columbia University in 2024. Khalil had reportedly distributed pro-Hamas flyers during the demonstrations.
Khalil is married to an American citizen but has been ordered to be deported after the State Department said that he lied about his previous employment at the UNRWA. The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit declined to revisit a January ruling from a three-judge panel that allowed Khalil to be detained again.
The court’s decision focused primarily on which court system has authority over the questions raised in Khalil’s case. Khalil’s team argued the issues should be handled in federal district court, while the government maintained they belonged in immigration court proceedings.
Because of the court’s declining to rehear the matter, the possibility has increased that the legal obstacles preventing Khalil’s deportation could be removed.
“We hope the Supreme Court will recognize how dangerous the Third Circuit’s decision was, not just for Mahmoud but for other noncitizens the administration has its vengeful sights upon,” Khalil’s lawyer, Baher Azmy, said, according to the New York Times.
The DOJ welcomed the appeals court’s decision not to rehear the case.
“Should he choose to pursue it further, we will continue to defend against this baseless challenge, as well as other similarly baseless challenges nationwide,” the department said in a statement.
