A Justice Department lawyer argued to an appeals court on Tuesday that a lower court’s decision to block the detention and removal of activist Mahmoud Khalil was “fundamentally flawed” and should be reversed.
DOJ attorney Drew Ensign’s arguments came as he faced tough questions before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in a tumultuous months-long court case centered on the constitutional rights of non-citizens.
Ensign said the New Jersey district court, which sided with Khalil, lacked jurisdiction over Khalil and that Khalil’s habeas corpus petition was not an appropriate means of challenging his detention and removal. Ensign said the immigration courts, under the DOJ’s purview, were the right place.
“Habeas is the path chosen by the petitioner, and the district court took this illegal detour by issuing an unjustified injunction,” Ensign said. “This court should change.”
Federal judge upholds anti-Israel leader Mahmoud Khalil, halting Trump administration’s deportation bid
Mahmoud Khalil said on the New York Times podcast that he believes the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. was a “desperate” plea from Gazans for the world to hear them.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who became a leader in campus protests against the Israeli government, has been fighting to stay in the United States since March, when the DOJ first charged him with immigration violations for his support for Palestine and sympathies for Hamas terrorists.
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Khalil, who is a legal permanent resident, was arrested at the time and an immigration judge ordered his removal because the Trump administration said the speech was against the national security position of the United States.
In June, Judge Michael Farbiarz, a Biden appointee based in New Jersey, blocked the immigration judge’s decision, saying Khalil’s First Amendment rights were violated, and the judge ordered Khalil released on bail.
Anti-Israeli activist Mahmoud Khalil claims that on October 7 the terror attack was a “desperate attempt” to make Gaza heard
Pro-Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil in 2025. June 20 released from federal immigration detention in Jena, La.
In a subsequent ruling, Farbiarz also took issue with a new ruling by an immigration judge that found Khalil debarred based on a more recent allegation by the Trump administration that Khalil fabricated information on his green card application. Khalil’s attorneys are now separately contesting that lawsuit.
Ensign, who is arguing on behalf of the Trump administration in several controversial immigration lawsuits, accused Khalil’s lawyers of trying to circumvent immigration laws that established a process by which immigration courts can make deportation decisions and defendants can appeal those decisions.
Khalil’s lawyers are trying to “circumvent a carefully crafted and clearly articulated scheme that Congress has created for judicial review,” Ensign said.
Los Angeles, CA – May 1: 2024 Protesters gather outside a pro-Palestinian camp on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, Wednesday, May 1.
One judge on the three-judge panel hearing the case Tuesday said Khalil’s lawyers should not be blamed for filing a habeas corpus petition in March in New Jersey because they did not know their client’s true whereabouts at the time. Khalil was arrested and detained in a whirlwind of several days, where he was detained in New York, moved to New Jersey, then moved to Louisiana.
“The lawyers didn’t know,” the judge said. “They had to prepare for the worst. What else are they doing but we’re creating a jurisdictional black hole?”
The appeals court judges have not said when they will issue a decision, but any time is possible.
Original article source: DOJ says judge’s decision to block Mahmoud Khalil’s removal was ‘unreasonable’