His Case is the Epitome of Trump’s Immigration Cruelty. It’s About to Land in Front of the Worst Possible Person.

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The U.S. may have moved on to another immigration crisis, but Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student who was arrested last spring after participating in pro-Palestine protests, is still in the middle of his legal battle. Khalil was taken into custody in March, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a rarely used mechanism in federal immigration law that claimed that the student’s actions would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” The 30-year-old green-card holder was detained for three months, missing the birth of his first child, but was released in June. Last week, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a devastating blow to Khalil’s case: A three-judge panel dismissed his habeas corpus petition challenging the federal government’s attempts to detain and deport him.

In a 2–1 decision, the court ruled that the lower district court of New Jersey—which had ordered Khalil to be released from immigration detention in June—did not have jurisdiction to consider his habeas petition. The panel’s majority declared that these petitions challenging a final order of removal can be heard only in immigration court, a system overseen by the attorney general, who also handpicks immigration judges.

Khalil essentially has one option left before being forced to go through immigration court: request a rehearing en banc. If that is approved, all 14 judges on the 3rd Circuit would hear Khalil’s case. But not only does the current makeup of this particular court lean conservative; it received a notable new member last year—Emil Bove. A former defense attorney for President Donald Trump and the former deputy attorney general, Bove has been mired in controversy throughout his tenure in the second Trump administration.

To make sense of Khalil’s options, I spoke with Elora Mukherjee. A professor at Columbia Law School and director of the school’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Mukherjee submitted an amicus brief in defense of Khalil, along with other students, scholars, and professors who have been charged under the same foreign-policy deportability ground that Khalil currently faces. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Shirin Ali: Before we get into the 3rd Circuit’s latest opinion, can you bring us up to speed on how exactly Khalil’s case ended up there?

Elora Mukherjee: On the night that Khalil was wrongly arrested, detained, and targeted for his speech—peaceful speech that should be protected by the First Amendment—he was initially detained at his apartment in graduate student housing at Columbia University. That night, his lawyers immediately filed a federal habeas petition for him with the Southern District of New York.

But by the time that petition was formally filed in federal court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had........

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