Mahmoud Khalil takes deportation fight to the US Supreme Court

Pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil has petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review a court ruling that could pave the way for his re-arrest and deportation. On Monday, Khalil’s lawyers filed an emergency application to the high court, seeking an immediate stay of a decision from Philadelphia’s 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. That court had ruled that federal law should have prohibited lower courts from ordering Khalil’s release from immigration detention in June 2025. Instead, the appeals court said that Khalil’s detention should have been weighed first in an immigration court — a system overseen by the executive branch of the US government — and not in district court, which is part of the judicial branch.