Free Mahmoud Khalil!
Students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.
From Mahmoud Khalil:
Letter from a Palestinian Political Prisoner in Louisiana, March 18, 2025
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.
On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.
Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration's latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.
The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.
From Workers’ Voice, Erwin Freed:
Free Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil
On the evening of March 8, ICE agents arrested Palestinian activist and academic Mahmoud Khalil, who received his Masters Degree from Columbia University in December. This represents the latest, qualitative, escalation in a general crackdown on civil liberties that accelerated during the Biden administration and is now being pushed to extremes by the MAGA movement. President Trump has declared that Khalil’s arrest was “the first of many to come.”
According to court filings, Khalil and his wife were confronted by plainclothes ICE agents as the couple returned to their university-owned housing. During the process of arrest, Khalil’s lawyer asked the police over the phone to email a copy of their warrant to her; at that point, special agent Elvin Hernandez hung up.
Khalil was kidnapped by immigration authorities despite being a recognized permanent resident green card holder and not being charged with any crime. The legal basis for Khalil’s detention appears to be the 1952 McWarran-Walter Act, which gives the State Department the ability to revoke visas from “subversives.” How this is applicable to Khalil is not clear. According to the Forward, the Act was “widely understood at the time [of its signing] to target Eastern European Jewish Holocaust survivors suspected of being Soviet agents.”
Initially after his arrest, Khalil was effectively disappeared. No one, including his wife or attorneys, were able to get an answer from the government about where he was physically located for almost two days. At the moment, he appears to be held in Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, La. The detention center is privately operated by the notorious GEO Group, and there are ongoing complaints of sexual abuse and torture in the facilities. Khalil’s attorneys have filed a petition to bring him back to New York City.
On Monday afternoon, March 10, Jesse Furman, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York issued a statement blocking Khalil’s deportation and setting a hearing for Wednesday, March 12.
A campaign of harassment
Mahmoud Khalil was caught in the crosshairs of a Zionist campaign weaponizing “antisemitism” to attack the Palestine solidarity movement. In the days leading up to his detention, Khalil was maliciously doxxed, and Zionist provocateurs even met with Senators Ted Cruz and John Fetterman to demand his deportation.
Only one day before being detained by ICE, Khalil sent an email to Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong requesting support from the university in the face of an intense harassment campaign and fears of potential illegal immigration action against him.
“Since yesterday,” he wrote, “I have been subjected to a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have labeled me a security threat and called for my deportation. … Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats. … Columbia has not provided any meaningful support or resources in response to this escalating threat. … I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”
That same day, Trump announced that his administration was canceling $400 million in funding to Columbia on the completely baseless claim that the university had failed “to protect Jewish students from harassment,” according to The New York Times. Later, on March 10, the U.S. Department of Education threatened some 60 additional colleges and universities with sanctions for allegedly not protecting Jewish students against antisemitism.
The response from the movement has been swift. As soon as news of Khalil’s detention was made public, activists put out an online petition, which quickly garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures. As of this writing, the petition has over 1.6 million supporters. Emergency demonstrations demanding Khalil’s immediate release are being organized around the country. Thousands turned out to an urgent mobilization in New York City on Monday, March 10. Student activists everywhere are responding to a call for a national day of action for Tuesday, March 11.
MAGA on the offensive against constitutional rights
The Trump administration has blown up any pretense of upholding constitutional rights. In a complete affront to due process, neither Khalil’s attorney nor anyone else has been informed of what, if any, specific charges the government is claiming against Mahmoud. Instead of even the formality of a warrant, Khalil is currently being made guilty until proven innocent by the entire federal government in statements and on social media.
According to a White House official interviewed by The Washington Post, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was directly involved with the effort to revoke Khalil’s green card. On Sunday, March 9, Rubio tweeted from his personal account a link to an Associated Press article about Khalil’s arrest with the statement, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
The official Department of Homeland Security “X” account also put out a statement on Sunday: “On March 9, 2025, in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student. Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security.”
The DHS statement was echoed by Trump’s message on Truth Social, where he said in part, “ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators.”
Taken together, these and similar statements use time-worn buzz-words and racist fears that are constantly inculcated into the U.S. population. As we discussed in a previous article, the U.S. government at all levels works to create manufactured threats from which they can then claim to “protect” citizens.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Khalil, a leader of the Palestine solidarity movement at Columbia and a lead negotiator between the movement and administration, is either antisemitic or “pro-Hamas.” What the MAGA heads are really after is not keeping anyone safe, but rather carrying out a media blitz to confuse and disorient would-be supporters of civil liberties.
These propaganda and legal maneuvers are important to recognize. They are the tip of the spear of an ongoing bipartisan attempt to silence social movements through intimidation, mass surveillance, and, effectively, blackmail against activists. The ruling class is trying to create a situation in which anyone can be targeted directly by the president as an “enemy,” “provocateur,” or foreign agent. All of this also has the effect of pushing down the fundamental idea that one is “innocent until proven guilty.”
The state is also putting Biden’s extension of surveillance technologies against the Palestine solidarity movement into a higher gear. Rubio’s State Department recently began a program titled “Catch and Revoke” that uses AI to trawl social media and the press to target visa-holders who criticize Israel. This program is the latest stage of using mass surveillance to politically silence oppressed communities and people who raise political opposition to U.S. imperialism and Israel’s genocide.
U.S. war on Palestine: the college front
Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest is the latest entry in a seemingly endless list of acts of surveillance, frame-ups, and police harassment against Arab and Muslim communities in the United States and the entire world. At the same time, the specific contexts of domestic universities in general and Columbia in particular are important to recognize. From liberal Clark Kerr’s crackdown on the free speech movement at UC Berkeley in 1964 to the Biden administration’s national task force aimed at repressing today’s Palestine solidarity movement, there is a long and violent history of U.S. imperialism targeting higher education campuses to snuff out dissent.
Biden set the stage for Trump’s escalation against the Palestine solidarity movement, and by extension all social movements and independent thought. It was, after all, the Biden administration that carried out the show trials of university presidents last spring. State-level Democratic Party politicians introduced new legislation equating criticism of Israel with “antisemitism,” often under the guise of combating “hate speech.”
Now, after collaborating with law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and private Zionist “security” organizations to disrupt the movement, university administrators are being threatened by Trump with funding loss if they step out of line. The irony is that Columbia University administration has been at the forefront of both administrative and direct police repression against the Palestine solidarity movement. In the lead-up to Khalil’s arrest, at least three activists were expelled, the first such expulsions in 50 years. One of the expelled students faced discipline for a protest that happened almost a year earlier.
Free speech! No deportations!
The movement’s response to Khalil’s detention is absolutely essential to both securing his freedom and all of our ability to speak out against the crimes of U.S. imperialism at home and abroad. The basic rights of free speech, thought, and assembly are hard-won rights maintained through vigilant struggle. Support for freedom of speech is one of the positive cornerstones of U.S. society; it is a deeply held belief for the vast majority of U.S. residents. Utilizing immigration authorities to target activists must be opposed vocally and through mass demonstrations.
The immediate responses from the movement demanding Khalil’s immediate release are an important first step. A national day of action is absolutely called for. At the same time, Trump’s attack on the Palestine solidarity movement goes well beyond Columbia or even college campuses. These are the spaces and the movement where they are testing what sort of state actions and roll-backs of democratic rights might be possible today.
We cannot give one inch to the ruling class’s anti-democratic forces. Workers in all sectors have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil. These efforts are beginning to coalesce through Tuesday’s day of action, but in order to build the movement that can really contest state repression, what is needed is national coordination through democratic assemblies and conferences bringing all anti-repression forces together in a united front.
From CNN:
Trump administration accuses pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil of hiding info on his green card application
The Trump administration – after accusing Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil of being a Hamas sympathizer without providing evidence – now says Khalil’s deportation is justified because he did not reveal connections to two organizations in his application to become a permanent US resident, an argument his attorneys call weak.
Khalil failed to state on his green card application he had previously worked for the Syria office of the British Embassy in Beirut and was a member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, the government says, the latter a focus of intense criticism from American and Israeli politicians who accuse it of antisemitism.
Khalil was an unpaid intern with UNRWA in 2023, but was never on staff, spokesperson Juliette Touma told CNN.
Khalil “sought to procure an immigration benefit by fraud of willful misrepresentation of a material fact,” the government wrote in the brief filed Sunday. “Regardless of his allegations concerning political speech, Khalil withheld membership in certain organizations … It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech.”
Khalil, a negotiator for pro-Palestinian student protesters in talks with Columbia’s administration over last spring’s contentious campus encampment against the Israel-Hamas war, was arrested March 8 and has been detained since then by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. US District Judge Jesse Furman, an Obama appointee, has blocked the government indefinitely from deporting Khalil and transferred the case.
The Trump administration initially said Khalil was a threat to US security, citing a law that allows noncitizens to be deported if their presence has “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Asked how Khalil had had engaged in terrorist activity, Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar told NPR on March 13: “I think it’s clear, or we wouldn’t be talking about it,” and provided no more details.
Other foreign academics also have been identified for deportation this month as the administration squeezes colleges over pro-Palestinian demonstrations amid a broader immigration crackdown.
Khalil’s attorneys argue the new justification to deport him is weak.
“We’re not at all surprised because it’s a recognition that the initial charges are unsustainable,” attorney Baher Azmy told CNN. “So, they’re going with a theory that they must think is more legally defensible. But I just think this doesn’t cure the obvious taint of retaliation.”
Khalil’s defense will file a response to the new government allegations by Tuesday afternoon, Azmy promised in a court filing.
In a letter dictated to his attorneys last week, Khalil called himself a “political prisoner.”
…
Khalil’s attorney says any questions about whether his residency application was properly filled out should be decided by a judge, not unilaterally by ICE.
“We’ll deal with that claim on its own terms when the time comes in the immigration court,” Azmy told CNN. “For now, for purposes of the federal case and his right to bond and ultimately his release from detention, we don’t think it undermines our case at all.”
From The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):
U.S. Efforts To Deport Mahmoud Khalil Are Unjust & Unconstitutional
On Saturday, March 8, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and prominent student activist for Palestinian human rights, in front of his eight-months-pregnant wife outside their university-owned apartment in New York.
DHS agents told Khalil’s lawyer over the phone that they were acting on a State Department order to revoke his student visa. When Khalil’s lawyer told them that he was a lawful permanent resident with a green card, the agents said that it had been revoked, too. The agents did not provide any reason or rationale for Khalil’s detention.
Transfer To Detention Center
DHS transferred Khalil to the Central Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center after his lawyers filed a federal habeas petition in the Southern District of New York challenging his detention. DHS has been known to transfer people to remote places far from their family, friends, and support networks where there are limited legal services and resources. It is unlawful for DHS to transfer people for the purpose of limiting their access to legal representation.
Recent Legal Hearing
A federal judge in New York blocked Khalil’s deportation, and a legal hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, March 12. During the hearing, the judge heard opening arguments regarding Khalil’s detention. The judge extended the order to block Khalil’s deportation and ordered that Khalil and his lawyers be allowed phone calls covered by attorney-client privilege. The judge also requested further briefings from the attorneys to be submitted by Friday, March 14.
Khalil’s attorneys are fighting to transfer him out of Louisiana and back to New York. The immigration judges at the detention center in Louisiana have one of the highest rates of denying the relief requested by immigrant individuals. The detention center is also under the jurisdiction of the 5th Circuit, which is one of the most conservative federal circuits.
Grounds For LPR Removal
After U.S. citizens, LPRs (also known as green card holders) are the most legally protected group. However, there are specific bases by which an LPR can have their status revoked. These include the conviction of a serious crime, terrorist activity, falsification of documents, falsely claiming citizenship, and unlawful voting.
The rarest and broadest basis for revoking LPR status is the perceived “serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” Even under this basis, the government still must prove to an immigration judge with “clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence” that an individual’s actions have serious consequences.
This means the government has the burden of proving that one’s actions go beyond simply participating in protected free speech activities before they can be deported. Engaging in protected First Amendment speech is not a basis for deportation.
CAIR Sues Columbia University
On Thursday, March 13, CAIR, CAIR New York, and the law firm of Dratel & Lewis announced the filing of a federal lawsuit against Columbia University and the U.S. Committee on Education and Workforce regarding a Congressional request to disclose thousands of student records. The lawsuit aims to block the school from further violating the privacy rights and endangering the safety of its students, including Khalil.
Legal Protections for LPRs
ICE, Customs and Border Protection, or the president cannot unilaterally revoke a person’s legal status. Only an immigration judge can revoke a person’s LPR status, and only after the government has met its legal burden to prove that the individual has violated a specific provision of their immigration status.
LPRs are entitled to the same Constitutional rights and protections as U.S. citizens, including First Amendment protections.
Due Process Rights
Under the Constitution, LPRs also have the right to due process and to have their day in court. However, if you are a nonimmigrant visa holder (tourist visa, student visa, etc.), your right to due process depends on the situation.
If a visa holder has their status revoked while in the U.S.—and ICE initiates removal proceedings by filing a Notice to Appear in immigration court—they have due process rights to have their day in court. However, their rights are limited if the visa holder is abroad and their visa is denied or revoked before they enter the U.S. They will not have the right to challenge the denial in immigration court.
Implications of Khalil’s Arrest
Khalil’s arrest highlights the government’s concerning crackdown on protected speech, especially speech related to Palestinian human rights, and violates various due process rights to which Khalil is entitled. The administration is attempting to criminalize speech that is critical of a foreign country—an unprecedented and frightening escalation of free speech censorship. Khalil was chosen as an example, and if the Trump administration is successful in his deportation, they will be further emboldened to go after anyone with whom they disagree.
Every American who values their Constitutionally protected rights of free speech and due process should be deeply concerned about the Trump administration’s unjust and unconstitutional actions. Standing up for Palestinian human rights is not a crime, and expressing views that the administration disagrees with is not a basis for deportation.
From The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE):
Trump administration’s reasons for detaining Mahmoud Khalil threaten free speech
The Trump Administration’s explanation for detaining Mahmoud Khalil threatens the free speech of millions of people.
An administration official told The Free Press, “The allegation here is not that [Khalil] was breaking the law.” This was confirmed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who announced Khalil is being targeted under a law that she characterized as allowing the secretary of state to personally deem individuals “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.”
Leavitt said Khalil “sid[ed] with terrorists,” “organized group protests” that “disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe,” and distributed “pro-Hamas propaganda.” She also said the Department of Homeland Security is trying to track down “other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity” at Columbia University.
The law Leavitt appears to be citing requires the secretary of state to have "reasonable ground to believe” the person’s “presence or activities in the United States . . . would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The administration is wielding this standard — deportation for people whose activities could cause “serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” — to arrest and detain an individual graduate student. In explaining how he met this standard, the administration did not allege Khalil committed a crime. But it did explicitly cite the content of his speech, characterizing it as “anti-American” and “pro-Hamas.” Protesting government policy is protected by the First Amendment, as is rhetorical support for a terrorist group (if not directly coordinated with it, which the government has not alleged here).
Disrupting college classes and harassing students is not protected expression, to be sure, and Leavitt stated that Khalil organized protests that may have done so. But the administration has not detailed Khalil’s specific actions with respect to those protests, so it remains unclear whether Khalil himself violated any campus rules against discriminatory harassment. Whether any such violation justifies detention and deportation is a separate question. In either adjudication, Khalil must be afforded due process.
There are millions of people lawfully present in the United States without citizenship. The administration’s actions will cause them to self-censor rather than risk government retaliation. Lawful permanent residents and students on visas will fear a knock on the door simply for speaking their minds.
If constitutionally protected speech may render someone deportable by the secretary of state, the administration has free rein to arrest and detain any non-citizen whose speech the government dislikes. The inherent vagueness of the “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” standard does not provide notice as to what speech is or is not prohibited. The administration’s use of it will foster a culture of self-censorship and fear.
This is America. We don't throw people in detention centers because of their politics. Doing so betrays our national commitment to freedom of speech.
From The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):
Sign-On Letter to Free Mahmoud Khalil
Background:
The Trump administration illegally arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and recent graduate of Columbia University, in direct retaliation for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights. ICE then quickly moved him from New York to a detention facility in Louisiana without any notice to his pregnant wife or legal team. Since Mr. Khalil's arrest, the administration has affirmed its policy of revoking people's green cards and visas based on their political beliefs and advocacy.
To be clear: The First Amendment does not allow the government to retaliate against anyone for their speech. Ripping someone from their home, stripping them of their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint is a clear attempt by President Trump to silence dissent. And that's patently unconstitutional. Political speech – however controversial some may find it – may never be the basis for punishment, including deportation.
We will not let this egregious, unprecedented, and illegal abuse of power go unchecked. Send a message to ICE: Free Mahmoud Khalil NOW.
Note: If you are not a citizen, please do not provide your real name in the "First Name" and "Last Name" fields for your security.
From Deportation Defense:
Letter Campaign to Demand the Immediate Release of Palestinian Student Activist Mahmoud Khalil from DHS detention
Note: If you are not a citizen, please do not provide your real name in the "First Name" and "Last Name" fields for your security.
On the evening of March 8, 2025, Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil was detained by the Department of Homeland Security. The arrest comes on the heels of the Department of State’s announcement that it plans to deport students affiliated with pro-Palestine protests. The student, who is Palestinian, is a lawful permanent resident of the U.S.
Columbia University, which recently published a new protocol on its plans to cooperate with ICE, has targeted Khalil for his Palestinian identity and outspoken activism on multiple occasions over the last 17 months. He served as a lead negotiator during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last spring and has frequently appeared in media interviews and press conferences. Columbia’s continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible. Like many other Arab and Muslim students, Khalil has been the target of various zionist harassment campaigns, fueled by doxxing websites like Canary Mission. This racist targeting serves to instill fear in pro-Palestine activists as well as a warning to others. Add your name to demand the immediate release of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil from DHS detention and a reversal to Columbia University's protocol permitting ICE on campus without a warrant.