Judge orders release of Mahmoud Khalil, pro-Palestinian activist at the center of long-running deportation fight

By Mark Morales and Dalia Faheid, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge has ordered that Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil be granted release Friday from a Louisiana ICE detention center – more than three months after he was arrested outside his apartment on Columbia University’s campus.

“I’m going to exercise the discretion that I have to order the release of the petitioner in this case,” Judge Michael Farbiarz said at a hearing Friday. They relate to my findings on risk of flight.

The ruling comes exactly one week after Farbiarz ruled Khalil – the only prominent pro-Palestinian demonstrator still in immigration custody in the US – can remain in detention.

After the judge said the government could no longer hold Khalil on the premise that his presence in the country is against the national interest, attorneys for the Department of Justice said the judge’s decision did not prevent them from continuing to hold Khalil on a second claim – that he failed to give required information in his application to become a legal permanent resident of the US.

The judge ruled last week that the administration’s interpretation of his order is correct, saying Khalil’s legal team “did not put forward factual evidence as to why it might be unlawful to detain him on the second charge.”

At the Friday hearing, Khalil’s attorneys argued that the court should allow him to be released on bail or transferred to a detention center closer to his wife and newborn son. Fabriarz granted Khalil’s release, saying he is not a flight risk or a danger to public safety.

“The petitioner is not a flight risk, and the evidence that has been presented to me at least is that he is not a danger to the community, period full stop,” Farbiarz said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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