In his first official duties since being detained by federal immigration authorities, Palestinian activist and recent Colombian alumnus Mahmoud Khalil opposed the conditions facing immigrants in US detention and said he is being targeted by the Trump administration because of his political beliefs.
“I am a political prisoner,” he said in a statement provided solely to guardians. “I am writing to you from a Louisiana detention facility where I have been awake on a cold morning and witnessing the quiet injustice ongoing against so many people who have been repealed from law protection.”
Halil, a US resident who led the pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University last spring, was arrested and taken into custody by federal immigration authorities on March 8th.
The Trump administration has said it is “targeting me as part of a broader strategy to curb the objection,” and warns that “visa holders, green card airlines and citizens will all target political beliefs.”
A statement that Halil called friends and family from an ice detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, opposed the explanation that Israel had renounced its custody, new fires in the Gaza Strip, US foreign policy, and Columbia University’s federal pressure to punish federal pressure.
“My arrest was a direct result of my exercise of my right to free speech as I insisted on the end of the free Palestine and Gaza genocide. “With the January ceasefire broken, Gaza parents are once again holding a small shroud, and the family is forced to compare the weight of hunger for the bomb and the weight of evacuation.”
Khalil explained that he was arrested in a university-owned apartment in New York, in front of his wife Noor Abdallah, who is pregnant with his first child. The agents who arrested him “refused to provide a warrant” before driving him into an unmarked car, he said.
“At that moment, my only concern was Noor’s safety,” he said. “My agent threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side, so I didn’t know if she would be taken either.”
He was then transferred to an ice facility in New Jersey before flying 1,400 miles to the Louisiana detention facility, which is currently being held. He spent his first night in custody, he said, sleeping on the floor without a blanket.
In his remarks, Halil said that in Louisiana, he woke up to a “cold morning” and “we will spend a long day with witnesses of ongoing quiet injustice against so many people who have been excluded from the protection of the law.”
“Who has the right to have rights?” asked Halil. “It’s true that humans are not crowded with cells here. It’s not the Senegalese I met, but the legal situation of Limbo and his family is leaving the sea that was deprived of freedom for a year.
“Justice escapes the outline of the immigration facilities in this country,” he added.
Halil drew comparisons between current treatments in the United States and how the Israeli government said it was using detention without trial to lock Palestinians in place.
“I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family that had been expelled from their land since Naqba in 1948,” he added, referring to the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, after Israel’s founding.
“I have spent the youth still far from my hometown. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. In my situation, it is similar to using Israel’s administrative detention – imprisonment without trial or charge – disenfranchising Palestinians of their rights,” he said.
“I’m thinking of Dr Husam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician and director of Gaza Hospital, who was captured by Israeli forces on December 27th and remains in today’s Israeli torture camp. For Palestinians, imprisonment without a legitimate process is common.”
Halil’s arrest sparks protests, sparks vigilance among free expression defenders, and views attempts to deport as a violation of his right to free speech. Halil has not been charged with a crime. His lawyers allege that the Trump administration is illegally retaliating against him for his activities and constitutionally protected speeches. In an amended petition filed last week, they argued that his detention violated his constitutional rights, including free speech and rights to proceedings, and exceeded the legal authority of the government.
His lawyers are currently fighting to return him to New York in a New York courthouse and secure his release. A federal judge blocked Khalil’s deportation while legal issues are pending.
Throughout Donald Trump’s presidential election and since taking office, Trump has repeatedly pledged to repeatedly force foreign students involved in parental protests on university campuses, frequently framing such demonstrations as an expression of support for Hamas.
Working at the British Embassy in Beirut, Halil served as the main negotiator for Columbia University’s Gaza Solidarity Camp last year, mediating Palestinian protesters and university administrators.
The Trump administration accused former students of leading “activities along Hamas” and was attempting to deport him using legal provisions rarely called by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.
Federal prosecutors are asking New York State Court to order his challenge to Louisiana.
Diala Sharmas, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a member of Halil’s legal team, said what happens to Halil will echo beyond his case. “The Trump administration clearly shows that this is their test case, their opening shot, and the first of more in the future,” she said.
“And in that test, they chose a brave, deeply principled organizer who is loved and trusted by his community,” Sharmas said.
After Halil’s arrest, Trump said it was “the first of many,” and that he had vowed to deport other foreign students on social media who accused him of engaging in “terrorist, anti-Semitism, anti-American activities.”
In a statement, Halil said he has always believed that his duty is not only to free himself from the oppressors, but to free the oppressors from their hatred and fear.
“My unfair detention illustrates the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the US continued to supply Israel with arms to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention,” he said. “For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has encouraged efforts to expand the laws and practices of the United States used to violently oppress Palestinians, Arab Americans and other communities.”
He added: “That’s exactly why I’m being targeted.”
Halil also criticized Columbia University, claiming that the university’s leader “lay the foundation for the US government to “arbitrarily discipline Palestinian students on arbitrarily and target me by allowing a biraldocking campaign based on racism and disinformation.”
The university is increasingly undergoing disciplinary action against students who participated in the pro-Palestinian protests. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is increasing its attacks on schools under the guise of a fight against anti-Semitism. The administration uses the same argument to threaten potentially crippling funding cuts for many other American universities.
Khalil said students have important roles to help them fight. “Students have been at the forefront of change for a long time. They led accusations against the Vietnam War, took the frontlines of the civil rights movement and encouraged the fight against apartheid in South Africa,” he said.
“In the coming weeks, students, supporters and elected officials must unite to defend their right to protest against Palestine. It is not just our voices that are at stake, but all the fundamental civic liberties.”
He concluded: “I hope that I fully know that this moment is beyond my individual circumstances and that I am still free to witness the birth of my first child.”
