Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist being held in an immigration detention center in Louisiana, are fighting to have the case heard in New Jersey.

A federal court in Newark will determine whether the United States can deport Mahmoud Khalil in what could be a landmark case on civil rights.

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student facing deportation for his role in pro-Palestinian campus protests, urged a federal judge on Friday to move their client’s case out of Louisiana, describing his imprisonment there as a “Kafkaesque” ploy to chill free speech.