Judge says government must release Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil [Video]

A federal judge has ruled that the government must release Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University graduate student whom the Trump administration is trying to deport over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

But Khalil, a legal U.S. resident, will remain in custody until at least Friday morning while the government decides whether to appeal, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said Wednesday.

He was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under President Donald Trump’s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.

He was then flown across the country and taken to an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana, thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife, a U.S. citizen who gave birth to their first child while he was in custody.

Khalil’s lawyers challenged the legality of his detention, accusing the Trump administration of …