The Trump administration might not have a clear understanding of what habeas corpus is, but fortunately, a federal judge in New Jersey does.

According to CNN, New Jersey District Judge Michael E. Farbiarz has granted a habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in March, because, according to the White House, Khalil is a “Hamas supporter” who organized an “unauthorized marching event,” and made social media posts in support of Palestine. (Khalil wasn’t formally charged with a crime because — and this might blow your mind a bit — NONE OF THAT SH*T Is ILLEGAL!“)

Judge Farbiarz’s order bars the Trump administration from seeking the continued detention and deportation of Khalil, a green card-holding permanent resident of the United States. The judge also ordered a stay of the preliminary injunction until Friday at 9:30 a.m., allowing the government to seek an appellate review if it chooses to do so.

“The lawful permanent resident filed a habeas corpus petition and has moved to preliminarily enjoin federal officials from removing him from the United States based on the Secretary’s determination. The motion is granted,” Farbiarz wrote in his decision.

Mahmoud Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla — who was eight months pregnant when ICE agents raided their home at a Columbia University-owned apartment complex and threatened to arrest them both, according to Khalil’s attorney, Amy Greer — said in a statement that Khalil should be released immediately to be with his family in New York.

“This is the news we’ve been waiting over three months for. Mahmoud must be released immediately and safely returned home to New York to be with me and our newborn baby, Deen,” Abdalla said. “True justice would mean Mahmoud was never taken away from us in the first place, that no Palestinian father, from New York to Gaza, would have to endure the painful separation of prison walls like Mahmoud has.”

From CNN:

Khalil was among the first in a series of high-profile arrests of pro-Palestinian students as the Trump administration moved to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses. While the White House has backed off the cancellation of hundreds of student visas, Khalil missed the birth of his first son and his Columbia graduation due to his detainment.

While a graduate student at Columbia, Khalil, a Palestinian refugee, acted as a liaison between student protesters and school administrators during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus in 2024.

“Today’s ruling is a huge win for the Constitution and the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike,” Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel in the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, said in a statement. “No one should be imprisoned or deported for their political beliefs, and the three months that Mahmoud has spent in detention are an affront to the freedoms that this country is supposed to stand for.”

Back in April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote and released a two-page memo that supposedly outlined the administration’s evidence against Khalil, but in that memo, even Rubio appears to admit that nothing the accused did was illegal; he just undermines the agenda of President Donald Trump and his cabinet.

“For cases in which the basis for this determination is the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful, the Secretary of State must personally determine that the alien’s presence or activities would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest,” Rubio wrote, citing “an obscure provision from the Immigration and Nationality Act – which provides broad authority to the Secretary of State to revoke a person’s immigration status if their ‘activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,’” according to CNN.

As I’ve written before, Trump and Rubio have repeated the claim ad nauseam that Khalil is a “Hamas supporter,” just as they claimed over and over that Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran native, who was mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador earlier this year despite a court order shielding him from removal — is an MS-13 member without substantiating the allegation with unambiguous evidence that wasn’t taken out of context or outright photoshopped.

Likewise, the Trump administration insists Mahmoud Khalil is a “Hamas supporter,” but that is also a label he and countless other white MAGA-fied conservatives have generally branded all pro-Palestinian protesters with.

Trump and his people keep calling the federal judges who block his Constitution-defying agenda “activist judges.” If simply upholding due process is what they consider activism, we have a whole different problem we need to address.

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