Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the encampment protests at Columbia University last spring, was detained on March 8 at his student apartment building.

The case against pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil will remain in New Jersey after a judge denied a government motion to have the case transferred to Louisiana where the Columbia graduate student remains in federal custody since his arrest last month.

The Trump administration requested to transfer the case from the District of New Jersey to the Western District of Louisiana, where Khalil is currently held in immigration detention and where appeals would be heard in one of the nation's most conservative courts.