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A federal appeals court heard arguments over whether noncitizens subject to deportation have the right to challenge their detentions using one of the oldest legal precepts.
Sept. 30, 2025, 7:46 p.m. ET
Student protesters detained by the Trump administration in deportation proceedings have relied on a centuries-old legal vehicle to have judges determine whether they were punished for exercising their First Amendment Rights and might be entitled to release.
Now, the government is seeking to convince a New York appeals court that the tool, a habeas corpus petition, should be generally off-limits in such cases, arguing that it runs afoul of American immigration law.
If the U.S. argument is successful, noncitizens detained by the administration and placed in immigration proceedings could lose one of the most dependable methods of challenging their detention.
Without habeas filings, Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi and Rumeysa Ozturk, three of the most prominent demonstrators detained by federal agents this year, might still be detained or already have been deported.
American Civil Liberties Union lawyers representing Ms. Ozturk, who was a graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts when she was arrested this year, and Mr. Mahdawi, who helped organize pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University in New York City, appeared at a hearing on Tuesday in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
A Justice Department lawyer, Tyler Becker, repeatedly laid out the government’s position before a three-judge panel, saying that Congress had stripped from federal district courts the jurisdiction to consider habeas petitions that challenged deportation decisions.
