NEW YORK — The Trump administration cannot for now deport or detain Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian activist being held in a Louisiana detention center, a federal judge in New Jersey ruled Wednesday.

Judge Michael Farbiarz, granted Khalili’s motion for release and said immigration authorities for now could not seek to remove Khalil from the country based on the determination of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who found the recent student’s advocacy for Palestinian rights could compromise foreign policy.

The ruling comes after the judge previously indicated he was likely to find the obscure provision of immigration law as applied to Khalil so vague as to be unconstitutional. On Wednesday, Khalil’s lawyers said Farbiarz’s decision was the first to rule that international students could not be deported solely on foreign policy grounds.

“This vindicates what Mahmoud has maintained since day one — that the government cannot detain or deport him based on Rubio’s say-so,” Ramzi Kassem, co-director of The CLEAR Project at CUNY Law School.

The judge based his early order on finding that Khalil, who has been in custody in a Louisiana immigration detention center for 13 weeks, would face irreversible damage were he not released.

“(The) Court finds as a matter of fact that (Khalil’s) career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled,” Farbiarz wrote, “and this adds up to irreparable harm.”

The federal government has until Friday morning to appeal the judge’s decision. Department of Justice and Homeland Security officials did not immediately say whether they intend to do so.

“This is the news we’ve been waiting over three months for,” said Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, who recently gave birth to the couple’s first child during his detention.

Abdalla shared that it was her hope that Khalil could be with her and their infant, a boy named Deen, by Father’s Day, this Sunday.

Khalil was arrested in March at his Columbia-owned apartment after the government moved to revoke his green card based on a rarely-used section of immigration law, which empowers the secretary of state to order someone deported on foreign policy grounds.

The government has also cited a second reason for seeking to deport Khalil — alleging he failed to accurately fill out forms when he applied for permanent residency. However, Judge Farbiarz on Wednesday rejected an argument that Khalil’s continued detention on that secondary basis would not chill speech.

“The evidence is that lawful permanent residents are virtually never detained pending removal for the sort of alleged omissions in a lawful-permanent-resident application that the (Khalil) is charged with here,” Farbiarz wrote.

“And that strongly suggests that it is the Secretary of State’s determination that drives [Khalil’s] ongoing detention — not the other charge against him.”

Khalil’s attorneys are fighting for his free speech rights in New Jersey separately from his deportation proceedings in Louisiana, where he was swiftly transferred after his arrest.

The judge in the parallel immigration case, Jamee Comans, sided with the federal government and ordered that Khalil could be deported, a decision he continues to fight.

Last month, she heard testimony from the student activist and several experts who said his deportation could result in his kidnapping, torture or even death due to his prominent criticism of Israel.

“ICE should immediately release him,” Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s immigration case lawyers, said of Khalil. “If they refuse to do that, the immigration judge should release him on bond. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for his continued unjust and cruel detention.”

Other noncitizen student advocates, including Columbia students Mohsen Mahdawi and Yunseo Chung, were previously released or spared arrest by federal judges.

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