Pro-Palestine advocate takes claim that Trump administration targeted him for protected free speech to top US court.
Mahmoud Khalil, who has been targeted for deportation by the administration of US President Donald Trump over his pro-Palestine advocacy, will appeal his case to the Supreme Court, according to his lawyers.
The announcement on Friday came after a federal appeals court – in a 6-5 decision – declined to rehear Khalil’s case challenging his immigration detention.
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Khalil has pursued two legal tracks since his detainment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in March 2025.
The first challenged his detention on civil liberties grounds, maintaining that his free speech rights as a US permanent resident had been trampled.
Last June, a federal judge sided with Khalil, ordering his release from immigration detention and barring his deportation. However, a federal appeals court later ruled that the judge in the initial ruling lacked jurisdiction over the matter.
Following Friday’s decision, that case will now be taken to the top court in the US.
“Today’s decision is not the final word, and we still strongly believe in our arguments going forward,” Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said in a statement.
“Federal courts must have the power to step in when the government exploits our country’s immigration system to punish people for their constitutionally protected speech. If the Trump administration can target, arrest, detain, and deport Mahmoud for his speech, they can do it to anyone expressing an opinion they disagree with.”
Separately, Khalil’s legal team has been challenging his deportation in US immigration courts.
Last month, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a final order of removal, but Khalil’s lawyers have also appealed the ruling.
In a filing last week, his lawyers argued that new evidence indicates that Khalil’s case was subject to “apparent procedural abnormalities”.
They pointed to a report by The New York Times that found that Khalil’s case had been flagged as high priority before it had arrived at the Board of Immigration Appeals, in what his lawyers say indicated the case was being “fast-tracked”.
The report also found that three judges at the Board of Immigration Appeals recused themselves from the case. While the reasons for the recusals were not made public, experts familiar with the board’s procedures have said the rate of recusals was extremely rare.
Khalil and his legal team have long maintained that he is unjustly being made an example of by the Trump administration, which has used immigration enforcement and crack down on pro-Palestine protesters.
US Secretary of State Marco invoked a rare provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act in targeting Khalil. The section allows the deportation of individuals deemed to be a national security threat based on “past, current or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful”.
The administration later added the claim that Khalil had intentionally failed to disclose his past work for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on his immigration application.
The Board of Immigration Appeals has ruled that both grounds are valid for Khalil’s deportation.
Khalil has never been charged with a crime and the administration has presented no evidence he represents a national security threat.
In a statement last week, Khalil said the administration “wants to arrest, detain, and deport me to intimidate everyone speaking out for Palestine across this country, and they are willing to violate longstanding US rules and procedures to do it”.
