A federal appeals court on Friday declined to review Mahmoud Khalil’s case, a decision that a spokeswoman for Mr. Khalil said would prompt him to appeal to the Supreme Court as he tries to stave off his deportation.

Mr. Khalil, 31, is a Columbia University graduate who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last March and quickly became the face of President Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus demonstrators. His immigration case has been sped through courts controlled by the executive branch, even as his lawyers have sought to stop his deportation in federal court, arguing that the case against him violates the First Amendment.

The White House has said that Mr. Khalil’s presence in the United States spreads antisemitism, flying in the face of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy agenda. They have cited his prominent role in the protests that rocked Columbia’s campus in 2024 while making unsubstantiated accusations, including that he distributed pro-Hamas fliers. Mr. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who is married to an American, has denounced antisemitism and said that criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which hears cases that originate in New Jersey, declined to review a January decision by three of its own judges that opened the door for Mr. Khalil to be arrested again.

That decision did not get into the issues at the heart of the case. Rather, it addressed the question of which of the two courts where Mr. Khalil’s case was proceeding — the Federal District Court or immigration court — was entitled to opine on the Constitutional issues in Mr. Khalil’s case. Mr. Khalil argued that the district court had the right to weigh in; the government said that the issues belonged in immigration court.

By ruling against Mr. Khalil then, and declining to revisit the decision on Friday, the Third Circuit set up the possibility that the remaining barriers preventing him from being deported could be dissolved.