Mahmoud Khalil Asks Supreme Court to Hear Detention Challenge

Palestinian advocate Mahmoud Khalil asked the Supreme Court on Monday to let federal judges hear his challenge to an immigration detention he says was meant to punish him for pro-Palestinian speech.

He is appealing a January decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a split ruling, that court said his constitutional claims must wait until his immigration case runs its course. A federal court could weigh in only on appeal of a final deportation order.

Khalil is a lawful permanent resident and was a graduate student at Columbia University. He is not in custody. The 3rd Circuit put its ruling on hold while he seeks Supreme Court review, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents him.

“Today, I asked the Supreme Court to affirm that federal courts have the power to hear my case,” Khalil wrote in a post on X.

The government, he wrote, knows its allegations against him would not hold up before a federal judge. In his view, that is why it wants the case kept in what he called “kangaroo immigration courts.”

The legal question

At the heart of the petition is a narrow question with broad reach. Can immigration law keep federal courts from hearing claims that detention was used to punish protected speech, when the usual immigration appeals process cannot provide meaningful relief? If the answer is yes, Khalil asks whether that limit violates the Constitution in his case.

His lawyers say a ruling that comes months or years later cannot give back time spent in unlawful detention. Nor can it undo the chill on speech while the case is pending. They base the challenge on the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment due process and habeas corpus, the constitutional safeguard people use to contest unlawful detention.

The 3rd Circuit majority saw it differently. It concluded the legal questions in Khalil’s detention claims could be decided when a court reviews his deportation order. The panel did not rule on whether the district judge’s injunction and release order were justified.

Judge Freeman partly dissented, writing that overturning a deportation order later would not redress First Amendment injuries Khalil suffered while detained.

The issue has split federal appeals courts. In Suri v. Trump, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed habeas review of such detention challenges and expressly rejected the 3rd Circuit’s reasoning.

The government has asked the Supreme Court to review Suri. According to Khalil’s petition, it also agrees the justices should take up his case, partly to guard against either case becoming moot.

In a third case, Mahdawi v. Trump, a 2nd Circuit panel followed the 3rd Circuit. The full 2nd Circuit decided on its own Sept. 3 to rehear that case.

Khalil’s lawyers ask the justices to hear his case alongside Suri. Alternatively, they want both petitions held until the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on his separate deportation appeal, where briefing is set to wrap up in early November.

“Our most fundamental constitutional principles have always prevented the president from sending people into detention on a whim or out of spite,” said Baher Azmy, the center’s legal director, in a statement.

Alina Das, director of New York University School of Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic and part of Khalil’s legal team, said the government jailed him for his speech. “The Supreme Court must uphold the power of habeas courts to free people from retaliatory detention,” she said.

Arrest, detention and separate appeals

Plainclothes federal officers arrested Khalil at his New York City residence March 8, 2025, according to the petition. Immigration agents moved him to New Jersey and then to a detention facility in Louisiana.

The government charged him as deportable under the so-called foreign policy ground. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that Khalil’s otherwise lawful activities would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.

Officials later added a charge alleging Khalil made willful misrepresentations on his green card application. Khalil maintains that charge was an extension of the same retaliation.

President Donald Trump praised the arrest that day, calling it “the first of many to come,” the petition states. The Department of Homeland Security accused Khalil of leading activities aligned with Hamas, an accusation the petition says came without evidence and calls false.

Judge Farbiarz of the U.S. District Court in New Jersey issued a preliminary injunction June 11, 2025. He found the foreign policy ground likely unconstitutionally vague as applied to Khalil and barred his detention or removal on that basis.

On June 20, Farbiarz ordered Khalil released on bail. Khalil had been held 104 days and missed the birth of his first son.

The government appealed. On Jan. 15, the 3rd Circuit reversed the injunction and bail orders on jurisdictional grounds. The full court voted 6-5 on May 22 against rehearing the case, with three judges dissenting.

Khalil’s lawyers also cite a federal court in Massachusetts that found, after a nine-day trial, that the government pursued a policy targeting Khalil and four other noncitizen students and scholars to chill protected speech. That ruling is on appeal.

His immigration case has moved on a separate track. A Louisiana immigration judge found him removable, and the Board of Immigration Appeals entered its judgment April 9. His appeal of the final removal order is pending in the 5th Circuit.

The 3rd Circuit majority had said Khalil could still develop facts by having the 5th Circuit send his case to a district court under the Hobbs Act. The 5th Circuit denied that request Sept. 9 without explanation, according to the petition.