Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team will seek an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to prevent the pro-Palestinian activist from being deported, according to a statement issued by the American Civil Liberties Union Friday.
The appeal comes after the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday denied Khalil’s request for the court to rehear his case in a 6-5 decision. It followed a 2-1 decision from January by a three-judge panel on the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that overturned a lower court’s order from last June that freed Khalil from immigration jail.
“Today’s decision is not the final word, and we still strongly believe in our arguments going forward,” Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel at ACLU, wrote in a statement. “Federal courts must have the power to step in when the government exploits our country’s immigration system to punish people for their constitutionally protected speech. If the Trump administration can target, arrest, detain, and deport Mahmoud for his speech, they can do it to anyone expressing an opinion they disagree with.”
Khalil, who is a U.S. permanent resident and is married to a U.S. citizen, was detained in his Columbia University housing in March 2025 and was jailed for more than three months before he was released.
