Mahmoud Khalil’s Supreme Court appeal is latest immigration challenge

The Supreme Court already has weighed in on aspects of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, rejecting limits on birthright citizenship, putting the brakes on attempts to deport people using the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act and allowing the administration to revoke protections for immigrants from countries plagued by war, unrest or natural disasters.

Now a new immigration case centered on college campuses is headed the justices’ way. With both the Justice Department and civil rights lawyers representing affected immigrants calling for review and a clear split in appellate rulings, the issue could be ripe for the Court to hear argument and render its judgment by early next summer.

Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, arrested in New York City last year because of his activism at Columbia University, and the Trump administration have suggested in court filings that the justices should take up Khalil’s case as well as that of a Georgetown University scholar.

The appeals follow circuit rulings in favor of the government in Khalil’s case and in favor of the Indian scholar, Badar Khan Suri.

“This represents a clear circuit split that will not get resolved absent this Court’s intervention,” Khalil’s lawyers wrote in their petition in Khalil v. Trump, 26-530. The other case is Trump v. Suri, 26-380.

At its root, the dispute concerns the administration’s authority to detain and deport scholars and students over their support for Palestinian rights.

In both cases, Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the U.S. whose wife is an American citizen, and Suri, who holds a visa to do post-doctoral work in this country and also is married to an American, allege they were detained for speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights, in violation of the First Amendment.

Lawyers for Khalil say they have learned that at least a dozen legal permanent residents in the U.S. have been subjected to deportation proceedings based on the same foreign policy ground that Rubio first applied to Khalil.

The issue before the court is somewhat more technical, whether the immigrants can have their constitutional challenges to their detention heard now by federal courts or whether federal law instead directs them first to immigration courts that are part of the Justice Department.

Trump had promised to target students who joined protests against the war in Gaza in 2024. Arrests during the first few months of his second presidential term drew extensive press coverage, perhaps none more than Khalil’s.

He was arrested in March 2025 after Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that his presence in the United States was contrary to American foreign policy interests, invoking a rarely used broad power to expel foreign students.

At the time, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said the arrest was in support of Trump’s “executive orders prohibiting antisemitism” and that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

Less than two weeks later, federal agents detained Suri outside his suburban Washington apartment complex. Suri did not take part in protests, but the administration said he had undisputed family ties to Hamas and wrote social media posts in favor of the group. His wife’s father once served as an adviser to a Hamas leader.

Federal judges eventually ordered the men released. Khalil spent more than three months in detention, mostly in a facility in Louisiana, where he missed the birth of his first child. Suri was held for two months, mainly in Texas.

The Justice Department appealed both rulings in favor of the men, and federal courts of appeals in Philadelphia and Richmond, Virginia, reached different decisions.

A three-judge panel of the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia decided in a 2-1 vote that Khalil’s case belongs in immigration courts, reversing a district court ruling in favor of Khalil.

In an opinion joined by Judges Thomas Hardiman and Stephanos Bibas, the court wrote that the Immigration and Nationality Act stripped federal courts jurisdiction, even as it acknowledged that “some petitioners, like Khalil, will have to wait to seek relief for allegedly unlawful government conduct.”

A three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, also voting 2-1, came out the other way. It ruled that Suri’s case was properly in the federal court system, affirming a district court judgment that Suri should be released while the government continues its efforts to deport him.

Describing Suri’s and similar cases, Judge DeAndrea Benjamin wrote that “in each case, the Government insists that judicial review of the allegedly unconstitutional detention can come only after removal proceedings that can last for months or years. Until then, according to the Government, a detained noncitizen has no judicial recourse. We disagree.”

In Khalil’s case, the Justice Department opposed a typically routine request for an extension to file his Supreme Court appeal. Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees matters from the Third Circuit, granted the extension.

Responses in both cases are due in November, and the Supreme Court could consider the petitions shortly before or after its Christmas recess.

Mark Sherman is a regular contributor to Constitution Daily. Sherman covered the Supreme Court for the Associated Press for 20 years, and he has previously written about the Justice Department, health care, and national politics.

Editor’s Note: Blog posts written by contributors reflect the analysis and opinions of the authors, and do not represent the opinions or positions of the National Constitution Center.