Lawyers representing Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel student who was arrested and detained by immigration officials over the weekend, were not able to secure his immediate release during an initial court hearing on Wednesday. Rather, Mr. Khalil will remain in a detention center in Louisiana, at least for now. 

Mr. Khalil’s fate was discussed during a hearing in federal court on Wednesday. The conference was called by U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman who temporarily blocked Mr. Khalil’s deportation just a few days after his arrest, ruling that Mr. Khalil must remain in the country as the courts weigh his case. 

During Wednesday’s hearing, Mr. Khalil’s lawyers argued that his arrest had nothing to do with “security, it’s only about repression.” They further contested their client’s relocation to a detention center in Louisiana and lamented that they hadn’t been able to confer with him since he was transferred out of New York. Mr. Khalil was not present in the courtroom during the hearing. 

Judge Furman ordered that the attorneys be granted one call with Mr. Khalil on Wednesday and another on Thursday. He did not rule on Mr. Khalil’s immediate release, as his lawyers requested in a habeas corpus petition. The judge also unsealed the case — a rare move for an immigration proceeding — citing its importance to the public. 

The downtown Manhattan court was swarmed by keffiyeh-clad protestors who came out to show their support for Mr. Khalil. Among the throng of anti-Israel demonstrators was left-wing actress Susan Sarandon who came under fire last year for claiming that Jews, post October 7, are “getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.” One protester was arrested after he snatched the hat of a lone counter-protestor who was waving a “Trump 2024” flag. 

The rowdy crowd quieted down to listen to Khalil’s lawyers address the press outside of the courthouse. “As we tried to make clear in court today, what happened to Mahmoud Khalil is nothing short of extraordinary and shocking and outrageous,” attorney Ramzi Kassem said. “It should outrage anybody who believes that speech should be free in the United States of America.”

Mr. Khalil, a Syrian national who entered the United States on a student visa and later received permanent resident status, was one of the leaders of the anti-Israel student encampment movement that has roiled Columbia University since October 2023. On Saturday, immigration enforcement officials arrested and detained Mr. Khalil  on an order by the State Department to revoke his visa and green card. 

The next day Mr. Khalil’s lawyers filed a petition calling for their client’s immediate release, claiming that their client was targeted for exercising pro-Palestinian speech. 

Mr. Khalil’s arrest marked the Trump administration’s first move to follow through on its promise to deport non-citizen students who support Hamas or other American-designated terror groups. President Trump warned on Monday that Mr. Khalil’s arrest would be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American” activism on American college campuses. 

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement over the weekend that Mr. Khalil’s arrest was related to allegations that he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

On Tuesday, the White House provided further details regarding Mr. Khalil’s arrest, disclosing that the student activist allegedly distributed pro-Hamas propaganda fliers. “This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during the presser. 

Mr. Khalil’s Wednesday hearing comes as Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended his decision to order the arrest and detainment of anti-Israel student activist, Mahmoud Khalil, insisting that the case “is not about free speech” but “about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

“No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card,” Mr. Rubio contended. 

The secretary of state further noted that the government has the authority to deny a visa application “for virtually any reason” adding that “being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down, being complicit in what are clearly crimes, vandalization, complicit in shutting down institutions,” is the kind of individual who “would have never” been let in.