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Mahmoud Khalil petitions US Supreme Court to hear his free speech case
Mahmoud Khalil petitions US Supreme Court to hear his free speech case
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Mon, 10/19/2026 - 20:54
Should the court decide to hear it, a ruling would have far-reaching implications for many noncitizen Palestine advocates being pursued by the Trump administration
Mahmoud Khalil speaks during a press briefing over Zoom, organised by the Center for Constitutional Rights, to provide an update on his petition to the US Supreme Court, on 19 October 2026 (Screengrab)
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Former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil has asked the highest court in the US to hear his case, arguing the government is trying to shut down the ability of a federal judge to intervene when free speech rights are curtailed.
Should the Supreme Court take up the case, it would have wide-reaching implications for all the noncitizen US residents caught up in the Trump administration's pro-Palestine speech-related immigration crackdown, including Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri.
Khalil's petition argues that the US Immigration and Nationality Act does not bar federal courts from reviewing "habeas" claims challenging punitive or retaliatory detention, and that if it does, its application in his case is unconstitutional.
The term "habeas" stems from "habeas corpus", which is of Latin origin. In 13th-century England, it was used to prevent the king from disappearing people without due process. Today, it applies to everyone on US territory, citizen or not.
In June 2025, it was a New Jersey federal judge who ordered Khalil's release from immigration detention after more than three months in custody. Khalil was not deemed a danger or a flight risk, and the Trump administration's use of a rare foreign policy threat provision to arrest him was considered by the judge to be too vague.
In its appeal, the US government claimed the federal judge had no right to intervene as Khalil's immigration case played out, given that the Trump administration wanted to deport him.
Immigration cases in the US are heard by immigration judges who work under the Department of Justice. Federal judges, by contrast, are independent.
The Department of Justice is currently run by President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche.
"The question before the court is not directly about the obvious unconstitutionality of this unprecedented weaponisation of immigration power. It's kind of hard to imagine how anyone could say it is legal for the government to lock up dissenters in order to silence them and others," Baher Azmy, a constitutional lawyer representing Khalil, told reporters during a virtual press briefing on Monday.
"Instead, the question is whether the federal courts, through the great writ of habeas corpus, can address this egregiously unlawful executive action."
Khalil has already been ordered removed from the US. He is now appealing that decision, and because of the federal judge's original decision to have him released, he cannot be detained again while his case continues.
Joint suit
Khalil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Trump administration's pledge to root out anti-Israel rhetoric among non-citizens, in March 2025.
His case gained global attention.
Who is Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian student activist facing deportation from the US?
Read More »
Khalil is married to a US citizen and used to be a US Green Card holder. When he was arrested, plainclothes ICE agents said his student visa and Green Card had been revoked.
Khalil was locked up in an ICE prison for 104 days, causing him to miss the birth of his first child, until a federal judge ordered him released while the government's case against him played out.
Last month, Khalil launched a federal lawsuit against Columbia University, on the grounds that it allowed people like him to be discriminated against, harassed, and ultimately arrested by US immigration agents.
He is joined on the case by the Palestine Working Group, a student-led campus organisation formed within the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia, as well as its president, Mohammed Ibrahim Zubairi.
Khalil is a Palestinian Muslim who holds an Algerian passport, while Zubairi is a Pakistani Muslim with a Pakistani passport, the lawsuit said.
The university, the lawsuit claims, showed "deliberate indifference towards and failure to respond to instances of severe, persistent, and coordinated harassment" directed towards the plaintiffs, specifically because of "their pro-Palestine advocacy and affiliation, their perceived shared ancestry as Arab and/or Muslim students, their national origin, and/or their status as non-citizen immigrants".
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