In what is being seen as a favourable step for detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, his case is being transferred from an immigration detention centre in Louisiana to New Jersey.
The transfer is considered important because due to Louisiana's notoriously harsh incarceration conditions as well as its distance of more than 2,000 kilometres from Khalil's home base of New York. Moreover, the decision of a judge to transfer Khalil's case shows a pushback to US President Donald Trump's mass deportation efforts.
The Trump administration has accused the recent Columbia University graduate of having positions aligned with Hamas and has deemed him a threat to national security. Khalil's legal team have said his arrest was to retaliate against him for his protest activities.
"These are serious allegations and arguments that, no doubt, warrant careful review by a court of law," Jesse Furman, US judge for the southern district of New York, wrote in a 33-page statement in light of his decision to transfer Khalil to New Jersey. "The fundamental constitutional principle that all persons in the United States are entitled to due process of law demands no less."
Furman, who blocked Khalil's deportation following his arrest, explained his decision to transfer Khalil to New Jersey, saying that the law required the case to be heard at the location where his attorneys had filed the suit challenging his detention.
Khalil was arrested by plainclothes law enforcement agents nearly two weeks ago at his apartment building in New York City in the presence of his eight-months pregnant wife.
She later said that she was initially told he was sent to New Jersey, but then found out that he was only briefly held in the state, and was then sent to Louisiana. His whereabouts were made available through a law enforcement tracking system.
Around a week went by before Khalil was able to issue a public statement from the detention centre in north-central Louisiana, around a four-hour drive from New Orleans. In his letter, he described waking up to cold mornings, surrounded by inmates from around the world.
"Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away," he said in a statement by phone.
"It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing," he continued.
In a sworn statement of support, Khalil's wife, Noor Abdalla, said that Khalil was not given his daily ulcer medication until three days until his detention and that he was struggling to eat properly while fasting during Ramadan.
"He has told me that he is unable to eat much because of the stress of detention, even at the end of his day of fast," she wrote.
"Mahmoud also takes medicine every day for a stomach ulcer he lives with and was diagnosed with following an endoscopy more than three years ago, and I worry about that condition worsening without proper treatment and sustenance during his detention. I know they did not provide his medication to him until Tuesday evening, despite his requesting it when he first arrived," she wrote as part of a legal document Khalil v. Trump.
It is unclear when Khalil will be moved to New Jersey, though the judge's order said it should be done immediately.
"Should the Court transfer the case, to minimise any delay in having the case heard in the proper forum, the government respectfully requests that the Court waive the seven-day waiting period contained in Local Civil Rule 83.1," Furman wrote, closing with "So ordered."
Nevertheless, many of Khalil's advocates are relieved at the decision's to transfer him to New Jersey, given its proximity to New York and concerns over incarceration conditions in Louisiana.
Many free speech advocates, including people not involved with Palestinian activism, have argued that Khalil is entitled to due process. The public nature of the case has led to harassment of all those involved, including the judge.
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