Mahmoud Khalil's legal case will play out in New Jersey, judge rules

If the case were to go forward in Louisiana, it may have ultimately ended up before one of the nation's most conservative appeals courts, possibly allowing those judges to issue a precedent-setting ruling on both Khalil's case and the Trump administration's broader efforts to deport noncitizen student activists. We look forward to the next phase of this case, which is to get Mahmoud out of detention and into the arms of his family, and then to prove the Trump administration's attempted deportation of Mahmoud and others is nothing but unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech," Bazer Azmy of the Center for Constitutional Rights said. Khalil's attorneys have accused the government of advancing a "radical reinterpretation" of existing law to move the case to a more favorable venue, while depriving him of access to his legal team and family.