May 29 (UPI) — A federal judge in New Jersey ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil are most likely unconstitutional but did not set him free from custody.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz wrote that Khalil, who was arrested in March by Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the intention of eventual deportation, was likely to win his case “on his vagueness challenge related to the Secretary of State’s determination.”
Khalil’s legal team argued on his behalf that the reasons to detain him violated the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, due to unconstitutional vagueness. According to Farbiarz’s ruling, vagueness doctrine requires a law be clear enough that people understand the consequence should it be broken, and to block the use of laws that are so broad they bend the separation of governmental powers.
In his conclusion, Farbiarz wrote that Khalil is “likely to succeed on the merits of his claim that Section 1227 is unconstitutional as applied to him,” with Section 1227 being federal code for what makes a person a “deportable alien.”
Khalil has been detained for deportation based on allegations that his application for lawful permanent residence was inaccurate, and because U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Khalil being in the United States compromises “a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.”
However, the judge also determined that Khalil “is not likely to succeed” in his case in regard to his purported failure to complete his lawful permanent resident application correctly.
Federal officials allege that although Khalil did apply federally to become a lawful permanent resident, he didn’t answer certain questions accurately, which can allow the federal government to remove an individual as per laws that pertain to “inadmissible aliens.”
Khalil remains in custody as the judge considers whether his assertion that his detention has caused him “irreparable harm,” and has requested his legal team provide additional evidence of such before he considers his release.
ICE arrested Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria and former Columbia University graduate student, in March for having allegedly “led activities aligned to Hamas,” in relation to his on-campus pro-Palestinian activism. He was the lead student negotiator of an encampment on the campus in 2024 when Columbia was the center of nationwide student protests held against Israel’s war in Gaza.
