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.

A federal judge ruled this week that the government could not continue to hold the Columbia University graduate under the rarely invoked law it originally used to detain him.

A federal judge has refused to order pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil’s release after a last-minute response from Trump administration officials arguing for his continued imprisonment based on “false and pretextual allegations,” the activists’ legal team has said.