An immigration judge has given the US government a day to show evidence that Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil should be deported and said she would rule on the case on Friday, a month after his arrest in New York and transfer to a rural Louisiana jail, Reuters reports.

“If he’s not removable, I’m going to be terminating this case on Friday,” Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans said during a hearing at the LaSalle Immigration Court in Jena, Louisiana.

If the government’s deportation case is terminated at the hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon, 30-year-old Khalil is free under immigration law. The government cannot challenge the termination, but if the judge terminates the case without prejudice, it can attempt to file the removal case again.