Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Palestinian rights activist Mahmoud Khalil is urging a full appeals court to reconsider a decision that opens the door for the Trump administration to re-detain him.

Khalil's legal team is requesting the full Third Circuit Court of Appeals review a three-judge panel's 2-1 decision overturning a lower court's orders releasing him on bail and barring the government from detaining or deporting him.

"If left to stand, that decision would permit the government to detain any noncitizen on retaliatory or punitive grounds, without lawful justification, while insulating this abuse of detention power from any federal court review, for what will likely be years, as it accomplished its unconstitutional end," the filing reads.

Khalil was freed from ICE detention in June after a US judge in New Jersey ordered his release on bail. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned the ruling, determining that an immigration court should have adjudicated the case.

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Earlier this month, Khalil appealed an immigration judge's decision that would allow the Trump administration to re-detain and deport him.

"There is no world in which Mahmoud should be torn away from his family for a second time and sent back behind bars for his protected speech," Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel in the ACLU's Center for Democracy, said in a statement.

"In this country, the government cannot punish people just because they don’t like what they have to say, and it is imperative that federal courts are immediately available to halt unconstitutional detentions. That’s what the district court did here, and we think those orders should and will be upheld in the end."

Khalil was arrested in New York City in March 2025 by plainclothes immigration officials who did not have a warrant. He had a green card and is married to a US citizen.

The Columbia University graduate was transferred to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where he spent more than 100 days behind bars and missed the birth of his first child.

A prominent member of Columbia's Palestine liberation movement, Khalil was targeted by the Trump administration for deportation due to his activism.

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"Federal courts must have the power to step in when the government exploits our country’s immigration system to punish people for their protected speech," said Bobby Hodgson, assistant legal director at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

"This case goes to the heart of what the First Amendment protects: if the Trump administration can target, arrest, and deport Mahmoud for his speech, they can do it to anyone expressing an opinion they disagree with," Hodgson added.

Last month, Senator Peter Welch led dozens of his colleagues in penning a letter urging the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to stop the "continued targeting" of Khalil.

"Evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that the Administration's detention of and efforts to deport Mr. Khalil have violated his constitutional rights to free speech and due process," the signatories wrote.