The Palestinian green card-holding graduate student detained by immigration authorities for his Pro-Palestinian activism will remain in a Louisiana immigration jail at least through early next week, as his attorneys prepare additional paperwork, following a preliminary hearing in federal in Lower Manhattan Wednesday morning.
In a procedural hearing, attorneys for Mahmoud Khalil appeared before federal Judge Jesse Furman, who ordered the government to allow Khalil to speak with his lawyers on a non-recorded line. Khalil’s attorneys said they’d been told they would have to wait until March 20 to speak with him on a confidential call from his ICE detention center more than a thousand miles away.
Furman also ordered government attorneys to file any motions on their behalf by Wednesday, with additional arguments from Khalil’s attorney in favor of return to New York and release by Thursday. Both parties have until Monday to respond.
Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian refugee, was a graduate student at Columbia University studying public administration last spring when he became a key spokesperson and mediator during the campus encampments opposing Israel’s war in Gaza that gripped the nation.
His sudden arrest and detention by immigration authorities has sparked days of demonstrations in New York City and evoked parallels to the kind of suppression of free speech not seen since McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
After Wednesday’s hearing, attorneys and advocates spoke to a throng of reporters gathered outside. Across the street, hundreds of Khalil’s supporters rallied in Foley Square, chanting for his immediate release, the third straight day of demonstrations on his behalf.
“Mahmoud believes in Palestinian rights and the end of an ongoing genocide,” said Baher Azmy, the Legal Director of the Center of Constitutional Rights, speaking to reporters outside federal court Wednesday. “It’s about repression, not about security.”
Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyer, Baher Azmy, speaks after a hearing on his immigration detention at Manhattan Federal Court, March 12, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Khalil has not been charged with any crime and was a valid green card holder at the time of his Saturday arrest.
The federal government had yet to justify Khalil’s detention or sudden transfer to Louisiana in any court papers as of Wednesday, and none came out from the Department of Justice attorney Brandon Waterman, who spoke on behalf of the federal government. Waterman said in court that the government would be arguing in court papers that the case should be heard either in New Jersey, where he was initially sent, or in Louisiana, where he is currently being held, instead of a New York courtroom, and added that Khalil is currently in deportation proceedings in the latter.
After his arrest Saturday in Manhattan and transfer to an immigration detention center in New Jersey, Khalil was shipped the next day to Louisiana, in what his attorneys argue was a deliberate attempt to disrupt his legal defense.
President Donald Trump and his surrogates have defended Khalil’s arrest and argued the government has the right to revoke his green card. They are citing an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states the secretary of Homeland Security has the right to deny or revoke visas “if the Secretary determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the approval of such petition, application, or benefit is contrary to the national interest of the United States for reasons relating to threats to public safety or national security.”
Speaking about the situation at a press conference Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the arrest.
“If you come to your country as a student, and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-semitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities…. If you end up doing that,” Rubio went on, “We’re going to kick you out. It’s as simple as that.”
On Tuesday White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had alleged Khalil organized protests where Hamas propaganda was distributed. Asked about the White House accusation Wednesday at a press briefing outside the court house, Attorney Ramzi Kassem, a founder of Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility or CLEAR, which is part of CUNY School of Law, pointed out the government has yet to outline any of that in court.
Mahmoud Khalil lawyer Ramzi Kassem speaks to the media after a hearing at Manhattan Federal Court, March 12, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“Whatever flyers the White House spokesperson may be talking about, they have certainly [taken] this potion in court. That’s an important thing to keep in mind,” Kassem said. “The White House spokesperson says a lot of things that are unsubstantiated. I would pay attention to what they actually put forward in court.”
‘My Husband Was Kidnapped’
In court papers unsealed Wednesday afternoon, another member of Khalil’s legal team, attorney Amy Greer, wrote Khalil experienced a “profound doxing campaign” in the days and months ahead of his arrest.
“The harassment was so pervasive that Mahmoud emailed the Columbia University administration repeatedly asking for support,” Greer wrote, including the day before his arrest.
“At 6:46 AM on Friday, March 7, 2025, Mahmoud wrote to Interim President Katrina Armstrong at Columbia University describing the vicious and dehumanizing doxing campaign against him — including people falsely labeling him a terrorist threat and calling for his deportation,” Greer wrote. “He closed the email by saying he was not able to sleep fearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), or other dangerous individuals would target him and his family and urging Interim President Armstrong to provide legal support and other protections.”
His plea to administrators came a day after Columbia assistant professor Shai Davidai, a vocal opponent of student Pro-Palestinain activism on Columbia campus who was suspended last fall for “harassing and intimidating” student activists, called for Khalil’s deportation on X, tagging Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
But after Khalil’s detention even Davidai expressed concern about the government’s rush to deport Khalil. “I too worry about the dangers of a state apparatus acting in haste and potentially targeting people unchecked,” he tweeted, adding Khalil, “like every other ICE detainee, deserves a fair trial.”
At first when he was apprehended at his Columbia University housing, the arresting officer told him his student visa had been revoked, according to his attorneys. But when his wife, who is eight months pregnant, showed evidence he was a green card holder, they pivoted to say that, too, had been revoked.
His wife sat in the front row of the courtroom Wednesday surrounded by attorneys and supporters. She didn’t speak to reporters after the hearing, but attorney Shezza Abboushi Dallal read a statement on her behalf following the proceeding.
“My husband was kidnapped from our home,” it read. “It is shameful the United States continues to hold him because he stood for the rights and the lives of his people.”
In the days since Khalil’s arrest, Columbia students have been on edge with other reports of ICE sightings, according to attorney Azmy.
“There have been sightings with DHS, there’ve been visits to apartments. This is having the intended effect which is to terrorize students,” Azmy said. “Columbia has largely aided and abetted an environment where students are so vulnerable to ICE.”
The university has yet to speak directly about Khalil’s arrest, only issuing a series of statements about the university’s policy of not allowing ICE on campus without a warrant. Khalil’s arrest occurred a day after Trump cut $400 million in federal grants to the university due to its “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
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