NEW YORK — Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil will remain at a Louisiana detention facility for the time being following a brief court hearing Wednesday as a crowd of more than a thousand demonstrators gathered to condemn his arrest by Homeland Security agents.

Manhattan Federal Judge Jesse Furman — handling a habeas corpus petition from the student activist’s attorneys and a request he be transferred back to New York — did not rule on those motions but ordered Khalil be permitted to speak with his lawyers, who said they hadn’t connected with him since immigration authorities swept him up.

The judge temporarily halted Khalil’s removal earlier this week and ruled that he would remain in the country while his motions are unresolved.

Ramzi Kassem, the co-director of CLEAR, a legal clinic at CUNY, said his client had been “identified, targeted and detained” solely based on his advocacy for Palestinian civilians. The attorney said it was impossible to represent him adequately, absent means to communicate, which is “the normal thing to expect for a lawful permanent resident who has no criminal convictions.”

“We literally have not been able to confer with our client once since he was taken off the streets of New York City,” Kassem said.

Khalil, 30, has been accused by Trump of being a terrorist sympathizer but has not been accused of a crime. He was detained by plainclothes agents from the Homeland Security Department around 8:30 p.m. Saturday as he returned home to his Columbia-owned apartment from an Iftar dinner with his wife, a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant, and was also threatened with arrest for attempting to intervene.

His attorney, Amy Greer, told the agents by phone that he was not in the U.S. on a student visa but on a green card. The agents said the green card was being revoked and hung up on Greer, according to the lawyer and Khalil’s wife, who has requested anonymity. As a green card holder, Khalil is protected by the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.

Agents took Khalil to a detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., prompting his lawyers to challenge his detention. Soon after, he was transported more than 1,000 miles away to Jena, La.

A prosecutor for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office told Furman that the government believed the matter should be moved to a different jurisdiction, like in Louisiana or New Jersey. Furman said the venue was determined by where Khalil was when his lawyers filed their petition. Referencing a “need for speed here,” he told the government to file their motion to dismiss or transfer the matter by midnight Wednesday.

Khalil’s lawyers said they would file an amended version of their bid for his release on Thursday. Furman, who won’t handle Khalil’s immigration case, ordered both sides to submit further legal arguments addressing myriad aspects of his detention by Friday and Monday.

The student activist, the grandson of Palestinians who grew up in Syria, completed his studies at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia in December and had been set to graduate in May. He played a prominent role in the widely publicized demonstrations at Columbia last year, where students protested the university’s investment ties to Israel, the bombings in Gaza, and U.S. involvement, acting as a mediator.

The Trump administration has framed Khalil’s advocacy for Palestinian civilians as antisemitic and supportive of Hamas, which the U.S. and several other countries consider a terrorist group. Trump has said his arrest will be the first of many foreign student activists whose political views are unaligned with the administration’s.

Speaking from Albany on Wednesday, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan called Khalil a “national security threat” and said, “Free speech has limitations.”

Khalil has denied he has expressed support for the Hamas group or hatred toward Jews in his calls for a ceasefire in the region.

The case has provoked sharp criticism from free-speech advocates, with Wednesday’s hearing attracting a massive turnout. Among those in attendance was actress Susan Sarandon.

In comments that were blasted on speakers throughout Foley Square, Khalil’s attorneys addressed throngs of demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and placards bearing Khalil’s photo.

Kassem said the government was justifying his client’s detention by relying on a rarely used provision granting the secretary of state the power to revoke a noncitizen’s lawful status if they are determined to pose adverse foreign policy consequences.

“That provision is not only rarely used, it is certainly not intended by Congress to be used to silence dissent,” the attorney said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the matter to reporters in Ireland on Wednesday, saying it was unrelated to free speech, The Associated Press reported.

Rubio said it was “about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with,” adding, “No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.”

But Khalil’s lawyers said the facts spoke for themselves. They noted that the government has not repeated in court the allegations against Khalil coming out of the White House, including by Trump’s press secretary that he’d organized protests where Hamas propaganda was distributed.

Kassem said Khalil’s detention should alarm all Americans, no matter their political views, and that it was based on suppression, not national security.

“It simply cannot be the case that you can be disappeared at night off the streets of New York City simply because the current U.S. government, the current administration at the White House, dislikes what you have to say.”

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