NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student facing deportation for his role in pro-Palestinian campus protests, urged a federal judge on Friday to move their client’s case out of Louisiana, describing his imprisonment there as a “Kafkaesque” ploy to chill free speech.

Detained Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil will remain in federal immigration custody a while longer.

It’s the first application cycle since pro-Palestinian protests swept the campus and the University found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump Administration.

The social studied assignment allegedly portrayed the Columbia University graduate student as a "terrorism supporter."

Detained Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil will stay locked up in a Louisiana ICE facility for now — as a New Jersey judge refused to consider freeing him on bail during a hearing

Scenes outside the hearing of detained Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil at U.S. District Court in Newark on Friday, March 28, 2025.

The families of Israeli hostages are suing Mahmoud Khalil and other Columbia University protest organizers for allegedly running Hamas' "propaganda arm" on campus.

Mahmoud Khalil is currently being held in an immigration detention facility by the Trump administration. But a year ago, he skipped out on the first encampment at Columbia, which would launch a