Attorneys for the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil have asked a federal judge to immediately release him on bail, or else transfer him to New Jersey, where he can be closer to his wife and newborn son.

The government is seeking to challenge Khalil’s recent motion to be released or transferred from a detention center in Louisiana.

Mahmoud Khalil was denied release on Friday by a judge who, earlier in the week, had rejected the Trump administration’s main legal basis for seeking to deport and detain the pro-Palestinian activist.