JUST IN: Trump Scores Major Legal Win From Third Circuit Court

A federal appeals court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to again detain and move toward deporting Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University graduate student who became a face of pro-Palestinian campus protests.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia overturned a lower court order that had sprung Khalil from immigration custody, ruling that the New Jersey federal judge who ordered his release never had authority to hear the case.

In a 2-1 decision, the panel said Khalil’s legal team used the wrong court when they filed a habeas petition to challenge his detention.

“That scheme ensures that petitioners get just one bite at the apple, not zero or two,” the panel wrote. “But it also means that some petitioners, like Khalil, will have to wait to seek relief for allegedly unlawful government conduct.”

The court added that the law bars Khalil “from attacking his detention and removal in a habeas petition.”

The ruling directs the lower court to dismiss the case that led to Khalil’s release and shifts the fight back into the immigration system, where the Trump administration has been pushing to deport him.

The decision marked a major win for the Trump administration’s campaign to detain and remove noncitizens who took part in protests against Israel.

JUST IN: Big win for the Trump administration in the 3rd Circuit, ruling that a federal judge in New Jersey never had jurisdiction to consider Mahmoud Khalil’s challenge to his detention.

Unclear what immediate effect it will have given tangle of other issues/rulings.…

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 15, 2026

Khalil, 30, was arrested March 8, 2025, at his New York apartment and spent three months locked in a Louisiana immigration jail. During that time, he missed the birth of his first child.

Federal officials have accused him of leading activities “aligned to Hamas,” though they have not charged him with a crime and have not released evidence to support the claim. The government has relied on a rarely used law that allows deportation of noncitizens whose views are said to threaten U.S. foreign policy interests.

In June, a New Jersey federal judge said that justification would likely be unconstitutional and ordered Khalil released. Donald Trump’s Justice Department appealed, arguing that immigration judges, not federal district courts, should decide deportation cases. The administration has also accused Khalil of failing to disclose information on his green card application.

Khalil has rejected the accusations as “baseless and ridiculous,” saying his detention was a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”

The appeals court ruling comes as an immigration appeals board reviews an earlier decision by an immigration judge who said Khalil could be deported. His lawyers argue that the federal court’s prior order should override that finding.

That immigration judge suggested Khalil could be sent to Algeria, where he holds citizenship through a distant relative, or Syria, where he was born in a refugee camp to a Palestinian family. His attorneys say he would face mortal danger in either country.

Messages to Khalil and his legal team were not immediately returned.

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