Pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil has petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review a judicial ruling that allegedly paves the way for his re-arrest and subsequent deportation. On Monday, legal counsel for Khalil filed an emergency application with the high court, seeking an immediate stay on a decision issued by the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

The appeals court previously asserted that federal law should have barred lower courts from ordering Khalil’s release from immigration detention. According to the ruling, the matter purportedly should have been evaluated first within the immigration court system—a bureaucratic mechanism overseen by the executive branch of the US regime—rather than through the federal district court system.

In March, Khalil became the prominent initial student protester targeted for expressing pro-Palestinian views under the current administration. A permanent US resident and former graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil was apprehended inside the university residential complex where he resided with his American citizen spouse.

The ongoing efforts to deport Khalil have ignited a fierce debate concerning free speech protections across American campuses. Legal experts note that his petition to the Supreme Court could trigger a major constitutional confrontation over whether federal courts possess the authority to intervene when noncitizens face retaliatory detention allegedly linked to protected speech.

Source: www.aljazeera.com