Mahmoud Khalil will remain in federal custody after a federal judge accepted the government’s shifting explanations for why it is detaining him at an immigration facility in rural Louisiana.

Khalil had hoped to be released Friday after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled in recent days that the government’s original justification for arresting him – because his pro-Palestinian activism threatened U.S. foreign policy goals – would likely be found unconstitutional and that it could not continue to detain him.

But in a letter to the judge Friday, Justice Department lawyers justified not releasing Khalil, saying that accusation is not the only grounds on which the government is trying to deport him. Almost two weeks after ICE agents arrested him in New York in March, they added another charge against him in immigration court: that he committed fraud on his 2024 green card application.