NEW YORK — A federal judge in New Jersey on Friday ordered the immediate release of Palestinian Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil more than three months after the Trump administration detained him for protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Judge Michael Farbiarz granted Khalil’s request for bail and said the order would go into effect Friday as soon as a magistrate judge set bail conditions and determined they’d been met. The judge added that there was “no basis” to subject Khalil to electronic monitoring or having to post bail immediately.

Spokespeople from the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to the Daily News’s queries about whether immigration authorities would comply with the order and release Khalil from the Louisiana detention center where he’s been jailed since his arrest at his Columbia-owned apartment on March 8.

“No one should fear being jailed for speaking out in this country,” said Alina Das, the Immigrant Rights Clinic co-director at New York University School of Law, Khalil’s lawyer who argued before the court earlier that afternoon. “We are overjoyed that Mr. Khalil will finally be reunited with his family while we continue to fight his case in court.”

Last week, Farbiarz found the Trump administration could not lawfully detain Khalil on allegations his pro-Palestinian advocacy threatened U.S. foreign policy. The government then shifted gears and said it was detaining him for failing to fill out immigration forms correctly when he applied for permanent residency, an allegation that had been added to Khalil’s case after he was already being held.

Khalil’s lawyers noted that Farbiarz previously found that detention based on the kind of misrepresentations alleged by the government is rare. They had asked the court to release Farbiarz on bail or at least move him from Louisiana to New Jersey.

Khalil was the first in a series of noncitizen college activists who protested Israel’s war in Gaza to be detained by the Trump administration. Many of those students have recently been released on bail while their immigration cases continue.

The 30-year-old graduate student, a green card holder with no criminal record, played a prominent role as a negotiator in campus protests, but was not among the demonstrators arrested during the takeover of Columbia building Hamilton Hall. His wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, a U.S. citizen, accepted his diploma from Columbia on his behalf last month after giving birth to their first child.

“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family,” Abdalla said in a statement. “But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Khalil, who was born in a Syrian refugee camp and holds Algerian citizenship, says his criticism of Israeli military activity and advocacy for civilians in war-torn Gaza and the West Bank is not based on bigotry. His lawyers have pointed to public comments condemning antisemitism that he made well before his arrest.

-------------

©2025 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.