Judge Blocks Deportation of Anti-Israel Activist Mahmoud Khalil

A federal court judge on Tuesday blocked the deportation of Syrian-born anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil, who is escalating his case to the Supreme Court.

The stay was ordered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

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Khalil gleefully posted the news on X.

“Some good news,” he wrote. “The appeals court has granted our stay request, preventing my detention or deportation while I seek Supreme Court review. This fight is far from over. More to come this summer!”

Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian with Palestinian ancestry, led violent campus protests at Columbia University, for which he was arrested and threatened with deportation. After a judge ordered his release in June 2025, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said he may be rearrested and subsequently deported to Algeria.

Khalil came to the U.S. on a student visa and received a green card when he married an American. As a student at Columbia University, he led protests on campus in 2024 and also led a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which had been banned for promoting violence.

In his green card application, Khalil failed to disclose his former employment at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has been shown to employ Hamas terrorists, and his ties to the banned student group.

The administration invoked the little-known and rarely used Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to justify the arrest, accusing Khalil of withholding crucial information on his green card application. The act gives the secretary of state discretion to deport any migrant he has “reasonable grounds” to suspect presents “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” to the United States.

Khalil was transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he was held for three months, until a judge ruled that his constitutional rights had been violated and ordered his release.

Khalil has permanent U.S. residency but is not a citizen. He has Algerian citizenship.

“It looks like he’ll go to Algeria,” McLaughlin said at the time. “That’s what the thought is right now.”

“It’s a reminder for those who are in this country on a visa or on a green card,” she explained. “You are a guest in this country — act like it. It is a privilege, not a right, to be in this country to live or to study, and if you are pushing propaganda that relishes the killings of Americans or promotes terrorists, the door’s that way.”

After his high-profile arrest, the American left rallied around Khalil as the cause célèbre of free speech. After the recent court ruling against him, newly elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani came to his defense.

“Mahmoud Khalil is a New Yorker,” Mamdani said Thursday at a press conference. “He should remain in New York City. We have seen this attack on him as part of a larger attack on the freedom of speech that is especially pronounced when it comes to the use of that speech to stand up for Palestinian human rights.”

After his release, Khalil continued his activities, appearing at pro-Palestinian protests and making controversial statements, such as defending the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as justified and calling for the dismantling of the State of Israel.

In January, the Trump administration moved to deport Khalil, and in May he lost his appeal.