Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has been released after 104 days in immigration detention in the US.
A judge ruled the Columbia University graduate student should be released on Friday.
He has become a symbol of Donald Trump’s crackdown on protests on university campuses after being arrested by the US immigration agency ICE on 8 March.
“Whether you are a US citizen, an immigrant or just a person on this land doesn’t mean that you are less of a human,” he said after being released from detention in Louisiana.
Mr Khalil is a legal US resident and isn’t accused of breaking any laws during pro-Palestine protests, where he served as a spokesperson for student activists.
He is expected to head to New York to reunite with his wife, who is a US citizen, and his baby son, who was born while Mr Khalil was in detention.
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“Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue,” he said. “This shouldn’t have taken three months.”
The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil over his role in the protests.
However, Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
During an hour-long hearing conducted by phone, the New Jersey-based judge said the government had “clearly not met” the standards for detention.
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The government is appealing Mr Khalil’s release, and an immigration judge, Judge Jamee Comans, has ordered the student to be “removed”.
“An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr Khalil should be released or detained,” wrote the Department of Homeland Security in a post on X.
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The US secretary of state Marco Rubio is pushing for Mr Khalil to be expelled from America because he says his continued presence could harm foreign policy.
The Trump administration argues that noncitizens who take part in pro-Palestinian protests should be deported, as it considers the protests to be antisemitic.
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Civil rights groups, such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which is suing the administration, argue this conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to silence dissent.
Judge Farbiarz ruled the government can’t deport Mr Khalil on the basis that his presence could undermine foreign policy, but it can continue deportation over allegations that he lied on his green card application.
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Mr Khalil disputes these allegations.
He had to surrender his passport but will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the country, including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress.
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Judge Farbiarz’s decision comes after several other students targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri.
