Khalil said in a declaration filed in Manhattan federal court that while he was held overnight at a detention center in New Jersey, “I did not hear anyone mention bedbugs.”

Mahmoud Khalil said he is being targeted as part of an effort to repress Palestinian voices in a letter dictated from a Louisiana immigration center.

A federal judge in New York ordered the case of Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil be transferred from New York to New Jersey where his lawyers will continue their legal efforts for his release.

While Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil remains detained in Louisiana, a federal judge has transferred his case to New Jersey, where he was taken immediately after his arrest.Judge Jesse Furman said his previous order preventing Khalil's deportation remains in effect unless and until a district court judge in New Jersey says otherwise.

Mahmoud Khalil’s case was transferred to New Jersey on Wednesday by a federal judge in a compromise rejecting the pro-Palestinian activist’s bid to keep it in Manhattan and the Justice