A former Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist is pressing his deportation fight to the nation’s top court, his lawyers said, after a federal appeals court refused to reconsider a ruling that cleared the way for the government to move forward with removal. Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team said the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia declined on Friday to rehear the matter, a decision that puts the case on track for action while his challenge proceeds through the Supreme Court.
Khalil’s lawyers said they expect the Supreme Court appeal to be filed in the coming months, possibly in late summer. They also said the American Civil Liberties Union plans to ask the 3rd Circuit for emergency relief—an order to prevent the decision from taking effect and to bar Khalil from being detained or deported while the Supreme Court considers whether to take up the case.
The 3rd Circuit decision followed earlier proceedings in which a three-judge panel concluded in January that a federal judge in New Jersey who had sided with Khalil and ordered his release did not have jurisdiction to decide the matter. The January ruling said that federal law requires similar challenges to first proceed through the immigration court system, which is part of the Justice Department rather than the judicial branch.
Khalil’s case does not end with the jurisdictional dispute, his lawyers said. They said the earlier decisions did not resolve the key issue in his litigation—whether the Trump administration’s effort to remove him over his campus activism and criticism of Israel is unconstitutional.
In Friday’s development, judges voted 6-5 against rehearing the decision with the court’s full complement, according to the account described by Khalil’s lawyers. Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, who had voted for rehearing, dissented, writing that the court was “abdicating our duty to meaningfully review Khalil’s constitutional claims,” according to the description of her dissent, and warning that the judiciary cannot “write ourselves out of relevance” while leaving the Executive Branch to check itself.
Khalil, 31, has also appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana after the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld his removal order. In those proceedings, his lawyers said an immigration judge failed to consider relevant evidence and wrongly upheld a charge that Khalil misrepresented information on an application for legal permanent resident status. Khalil’s legal team said the charge was brought in retaliation for his protest activity.
Through his lawyers, Khalil argued that he would face mortal danger if returned to the countries the immigration judge suggested, including Algeria—where he maintains citizenship through a distant relative—and Syria, where he was born in a refugee camp to a Palestinian family. His lawyers said he would face mortal danger in either place if forced to go there.
Khalil was arrested in March 2025, and his lawyers said he spent about three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail and missed the birth of his child. Federal officials have accused him of leading activities they described as “aligned to Hamas,” though they have not presented evidence in support of that claim and have not accused him of criminal conduct, according to the account from his lawyers.
Khalil has dismissed those allegations, describing them as “baseless and ridiculous,” and he framed his arrest and detention as a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech” as he advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza. The government, his lawyers said, justified his arrest under a seldom-used statute that allows for expulsion of noncitizens whose beliefs are deemed to pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests.
In June 2025, the New Jersey federal judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that the government’s justification would likely be unconstitutional and ordered Khalil released. The Trump administration appealed, arguing the deportation decision should fall to an immigration judge rather than a federal court, and the 3rd Circuit ruled in that administration’s favor in a decision that Khalil’s lawyers are now trying to take to the Supreme Court.
In the 3rd Circuit proceedings, Judge Emil Bove did not participate in the vote on whether to rehear the case, according to the account. His lawyers previously sought his recusal, and in a later order Bove denied a request that he step aside, describing it as moot—an issue raised earlier in MSI coverage: Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyers seek recusal of 3rd Circuit Judge Emil Bove.