NEW YORK: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to release Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who became a leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests.
Khalil, a legal permanent US resident who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation.
District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release on bail during a hearing on Friday and he will be allowed to return to New York while his deportation case proceeds.
“After more than three months, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home,” his wife, Michigan-born dentist Noor Abdalla, said in a statement.
“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” added Abdalla, who gave birth to the couple’s first child while her husband was in detention.
