Mahmoud Khalil takes legal fight to Supreme Court

Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University demonstrator who became a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian foreign students, asked the Supreme Court on Monday to take up his case, his lawyers said. 

Khalil was jailed for months last year, and he has long asserted his detention was retaliation for his protected speech. 

The high court isn’t being asked to resolve that directly yet. Khalil appeals a ruling that a federal judge had no power to order his release from jail until he exhausts his options in the immigration system. 

“If the decision stands, the government would be handed a powerful and unprecedented weapon to silence its critics, and to chill the speech of countless others, including citizens, who wish to avoid the government’s wrath against themselves and their loved ones,” Khalil’s lawyers wrote in their petition.

The Supreme Court turns away the vast majority of petitions to hear cases and will consider Khalil’s at a closed-door meeting in the coming months. His lawyers expressed hope it will be on track to be heard this term. 

Until the justices decide how to proceed, Khalil will remain free. 

The green-card holder has emerged as a face of the Trump administration’s arrests of noncitizen college students and faculty who’ve expressed pro-Palestinian support.  

Immigration authorities arrested Khalil in March 2025, and he was jailed until a federal judge ordered his release a few months later. 

he brought his fight to the high court after losing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. 

The appeals court agreed with the Trump administration that federal law prevents judges from hearing Khalil’s arguments until after he finishes through the immigration court system. It’s part of the executive branch, and his lawyers say it effectively enables the sitting administration to drag out the proceedings and unconstitutionally punish him in the meantime.

The attorneys contend he should be able to raise his First Amendment defense immediately via what is known as a habeas petition. 

“This administration knows all too well that its baseless allegations and smears against me cannot survive the slightest scrutiny in federal court,” Khalil told reporters. “That’s why it’s doing everything it can to keep the federal courts away from looking at my case, and they’re trying to channel it into their kangaroo immigration courts.” 

The issue is already at the justices’s feet.  

The Trump administration previously asked the Supreme Court to take a look after an appeals court ruled the other way in the case of Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and Georgetown University postdoctoral scholar whom the administration has looked to deport. 

The administration acknowledged the court may want to take up both men’s cases.