The judge who presided over a lawsuit in New Jersey challenging the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil denied the government’s motion to dismiss his request and said he has jurisdiction on the case, according to an order presented on Tuesday.
Federal officials had argued that Judge Michael Fabiarz, designated by former President Joe Biden, had no jurisdiction on demand, known as a habit request, and moved to dismiss her.
Fabiarz said he has jurisdiction on the matter because Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States and an outstanding pro-Palestinian activist who faces a deportation order due to his activism at Columbia University, was in New Jersey when the petition was presented in his name in New York.
The petition states that Khalil’s arrest violates its due process and its rights of the first amendment.
“The petitioner was in custody in New Jersey from March 9 at 4:40 am,” says Fabiarz’s order. “And under a federal statute, the petition, although presented in New York, must be treated as presented in New Jersey on March 9 at 4:40 AM. Therefore, this court has jurisdiction.”
A spokesman for the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Tuesday.
Khalil’s lawyers held the decision, saying in a statement on Tuesday that “sends a strong message to other courts from all over the country that face government attempts to buy favorable jurisdictions by transferring people detained in unconstitutional immigration positions and making it difficult or impossible for their lawyers to know where to look for their immediate release.”
During a hearing last week, August Flentje, interim director of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, said that Khalil was only in New Jersey for a few hours and that the “safer way to do it” was to transfer the case to Louisiana.
Khalil has been arrested at a Louisiana detention center since shortly after his arrest on March 8, when the immigration authorities arrested him for the accusations that he directed activities “aligned with Hamas”, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization.
Khalil has not been accused of committing any crime, and a lawyer has said that there is no evidence that he has provided any support for a terrorist organization.
Administration officials cited a provision rarely used in the immigration law that says that the Secretary of State has the authority to deport someone if it is determined to have “consequences of serious adverse foreign policy for the United States.”
The lawyers of the Department of Justice then said that Khalil, a native of Syria and citizen of Algeria, who entered the United States into a student visa in December 2022 and became a legal permanent resident two years later, did not reveal that he was part of the disinversion of the apartheid of the University of Columbia or a political officer for the United Nations Agency and the agency for the work agency for Palestinian refugees.
In a presentation, the department described the alleged misrepresentations as additional reasons for Khalil’s deportation.
Baher Azmy, a Khalil lawyer, described the accusations as “dumb” and said that “they show mainly that the government must know the alleged reasons for ‘foreign policy’ for the elimination of Mahmoud are absurd and unconstitutional.”
The new statements “cannot change the obvious fact that the government has admitted: it is being punished in the most autocratic way for its constitutionally protected speech,” said Azmy.
A federal judge in New York who initially reviewed Khalil’s request before he moved to New Jersey said he raises “serious” accusations that justify a careful review and prohibited Khalil deportation while the procedures are ongoing.
