FILE PHOTO: Dr. Noor Abdalla, wife of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who remains in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana after being detained in early March for his involvement in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, holds up a “Release Mahmoud Khalil Now” protest sticker while posing for a portrait in New York City, U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Angelina Katsanis/File Photo

By Jonathan Allen and Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A U.S. judge ordered on Friday that Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil be released from immigration custody, a major victory for rights groups that challenged what they called the Trump administration's unlawful targeting of a pro-Palestinian activist.

Khalil, a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel's war on Gaza, was arrested by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan on March 8. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has called the protests antisemitic and vowed to deport foreign students who took part, and Khalil became the first target of this policy.

FILE PHOTO: A display in honor of Mahmoud Khalil sits on stage at the People's Graduation, hosted for Khalil and other students unable to participate in Columbia and New York University's commencement ceremony, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, U.S., May 18, 2025. REUTERS/Angelina Katsanis/File Photo

After hearing oral arguments from lawyers for Khalil and for the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, ordered DHS to release him from custody at a jail for immigrants in rural Louisiana.

Farbiarz said the government had made no attempt to rebut evidence provided by Khalil's lawyers that he was not a flight risk nor a danger to public.

"There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner (Khalil)," Farbiarz said as he ruled from the bench, and punishing someone over a civil immigration matter is unconstitutional, he said.

FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators gather on the day of a hearing on the detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, outside the Federal Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., March 28, 2025. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States, says he is being punished for his political speech in violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Khalil condemned antisemitism and racism in interviews with CNN and other news outlets last year.

Earlier this month, Farbiarz had ruled that the government was violating Khalil's free speech rights by detaining him under a little-used law granting the U.S. secretary of state power to seek deportation of non-citizens whose presence in the country was deemed adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests.

But the judge declined on June 13 to order Khalil's release from a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, after President Donald Trump's administration said Khalil was being held on a separate charge that he withheld information from his application for lawful permanent residency.

Khalil's lawyers deny that allegation and say people are rarely detained on such charges. On June 16, they urged Farbiarz to grant a separate request from their client to be released on bail or be transferred to immigration detention in New Jersey to be closer to his family in New York.

FILE PHOTO: Protesters supporting Mahmoud Khalil march in Manhattan, the day after a U.S. immigration judge ruled that Columbia student Khalil, who led pro-Palestinian student protests on campus, can be deported, in New York City, New York, U.S., April 12, 2025. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs/File Photo

At Friday's hearing, Farbiarz said it was "highly unusual" for the government to jail an immigrant accused of omissions in his application for U.S. permanent residency.

Khalil, 30, became a U.S. permanent resident last year, and his wife and newborn son are U.S. citizens.

Trump administration lawyers wrote in a June 17 filing that Khalil's request for release should be addressed to the judge overseeing his immigration case, an administrative process over whether he can be deported, rather than to Farbiarz, who is considering whether Khalil's March 8 arrest and subsequent detention were constitutional.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Nick Zieminski)