NBC News - Pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil has been released from detention, capping a more than three-month bout in custody. Khalil’s plight has been the center of a battle over the executive branch’s power to act against legal U.S. residents unilaterally.
Trump has been boisterous about vocal opponents of Israel's incursion into Gaza, including Khalil, who was a key figure in Columbia campus protests against the war in Gaza last year. He had been in the custody of immigration agents since March, and a federal judge ordered that he be freed on Friday, but not without certain conditions. Khalil was ordered to limit his travel to New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Louisiana and Washington, D.C.
A judge also said he will have to surrender his passport and any other travel documents.
Khalil has a green card, is married to a U.S. citizen and has no criminal record. Although his release was celebrated by family and his defense team, the administration continues to argue that Congress has given the executive branch large-scale power to determine who can be removed from the country.
Less than 10 minutes after his release from the detention center in Jena, Louisiana, the Trump administration filed a notice of appeal against the judge’s order and a previous ruling that had preliminarily barred his detention and deportation based on a determination that he poses a national security risk.
No comments:
Post a Comment