A federal judge has ruled that the legal battle over Mahmoud Khalil's deportation should continue to play out in New Jersey, rejecting the Trump administration's bid to transfer the Columbia University protester's case to Louisiana.

Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning. The Trump Administration requested to transfer the case from the District of New Jersey to the Western District of Louisiana, where Khalil is currently held in immigration detention and where appeals would be heard in one of the nation's most conservative courts.

Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the encampment protests at Columbia University last spring, was detained on March 8 at his student apartment building.

The government argued, in vain, that New Jersey never had jurisdiction on the case and that a habeas corpus petition could only be targeted at Louisiana detention officials.

A New Jersey-based federal judge on Tuesday declined the Trump administration’s request to transfer pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s immigration detention challenge to Louisiana, where is

Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil may continue to challenge the legality of his arrest by immigration authorities in New Jersey, rather than in Louisiana where he is being held, a U.S. judge ruled on Tuesday.