Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University demonstrator who became a flash point in the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian foreign college students, asked the Supreme Court on Monday to take up his case, his lawyers said. 

Khalil was jailed for months last year, and he has long asserted his detention was retaliation for his protected speech. 

Khalil is appealing a ruling that a federal judge had no power to order his release from jail until he exhausts his options in the immigration system. 

“If the decision stands, the government would be handed a powerful and unprecedented weapon to silence its critics, and to chill the speech of countless others, including citizens, who wish to avoid the government’s wrath against themselves and their loved ones,” Khalil’s lawyers wrote in their petition.

Read more at The Hill.