Protests continue to demand the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention. Khalil is a Columbia University graduate who was a leading activist in Palestine solidarity protests last year.
Immigrant rights group the National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NLDON), called Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest, “an attack on our fundamental rights and a dangerous overreach by the government.” Jorge Torres, NDLON’s Director of Organizing, stated that “this is an assault on the rights of immigrants and organizers alike. It’s a clear message that the Trump administration will stop at nothing to silence those who fight for justice.”
“By strong-arming universities into punishing students, the Trump administration seeks to instill fear and silence a growing wave of resistance,” read a statement by the Party for Socialism and Liberation regarding Khalil’s arrest and yesterday’s wave of expulsions of pro-Palestine students at Columbia University. “But history has shown that repression only fuels movements, and this will be no exception. The struggle for Palestinian freedom and the right to protest will not be crushed—it will only grow stronger in the face of these attacks.”
‘Mahmoud, if you can hear us’
On Wednesday, March 12, a rally calling for Khalil’s release was held directly outside the notoriously brutal ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana, where Khalil is being held, over 1,000 miles away from his home in New York. Organizations such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), were in attendance, as well as longtime immigrant rights organizer Gloria La Riva. “It doesn’t matter that they moved him from New York to Louisiana. And it won’t matter if they move him from Louisiana to Florida, to Kansas, heck, to Nebraska,” said demonstrator Sol Alfonso. “We will mobilize all across this country. We will demand his release from every state and every city until it is done.”
“Mahmoud, if you can hear us, we are going to keep fighting for you,” said Jade Woods, another speaker at the rally outside of the ICE facility. “It’s clear that a government that feels emboldened enough to kidnap a permanent resident with a green card from their home just for expressing a political opinion is a danger to all people everywhere. But instead of scaring us into staying inside, the audacity of the Trump administration’s attack has also made us bolder.”
Mass demonstration takes demands to Trump Tower
98 demonstrators were arrested following a mass sit-in in Trump Tower in New York City in the morning of March 13, calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil. Led by Jewish anti-zionist Palestine solidarity group Jewish Voice for Peace, protesters staged a civil disobedience action inside one of Trump’s most symbols of power, chanting “Come for one, face us all, free Mahmoud, free them all!” Protesters sat and chanted in the lower level of the building, unfurling banners that read “Free Mahmoud, Free Palestine,” and “You can’t deport a movement.”
Anti-war organization CODEPINK has confronted several sitting members of Congress, asking why they have not publicly supported calls for Khalil’s release. These include Ritchie Torres, Bronx representative who has become notorious for his over-the-top support of Israel while by comparison, barely mentioning the impoverishment of his own congressional district. Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK asked Torres on Capitol Hill if he believes “a green card holder who committed no crime should be arrested,” Torres responded, “If you are engaged in violent conduct that takes over a building at a campus college, that’s not free speech.”
Benjamin also confronted Utah Representative Burgess Owens, who, like Torres, enjoys hefty funding from one of the most powerful pro-Israel lobbyist groups, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Benjamin asked Owens if he had made any statement on Khalil’s arrest, to which he responded, “He should go home, cause he’s a terrorist.”
Mass demonstrations are scheduled to take place across the country to demand Khalil’s release this weekend—including in New York City; Boston; Sacramento, California; Phoenix, Arizona; Charlotte, North Carolina; and St. Louis, Missouri. Mobilizations have already taken place in cities and campuses around the US including at the University of Georgia, where students, workers, and others rallied together, holding signs that read “Hands off our students” and “Divest from apartheid.” Students at Brown University held a rally in support of Khalil, chanting “Free Mahmoud Khalil now!” and holding a banner that read “ICE off our campuses”.
Video shows harrowing footage of arrest
A video was recently released to the public, taken by Khalil’s wife, Noor who was eight months pregnant and witnessed his arrest by ICE agents at their home.
The video shows Khalil’s harrowing arrest by immigration agents who refused to give Noor their names, ordering her to stay back after several officers handcuffed Khalil and escorted him out of campus housing in which he lives.
Noor said of the footage, “You’re watching the most terrifying moment of my life. This felt like a kidnapping because it was: Officers in plainclothes — who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names — forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me. They threatened to take me too, even though we were calm and fully cooperating. For the next 38 hours after this video, neither I or our lawyers knew where Mahmoud was being held. Now, he’s over 1,000 miles from home, still being wrongfully detained by US immigration.”
“Mr. Khalil was taken by plainclothes DHS agents in front of his pregnant wife without any legal justification,” said Samah Sisay, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, part of Khalil’s legal defense. “Mr. Khalil must be freed because the government cannot use these coercive tactics to unlawfully suppress his First Amendment protected speech in support of Palestinian rights.”
Khalil’s legal defense recently filed a legal challenge with the Southern District of New York, to his ongoing ICE detention.
“Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest and detention is an escalation of the US Government’s continual efforts to suppress the speech and association rights of student organizers seeking to hold the US accountable for its facilitation of the genocide being exacted upon the people of Gaza and the Occupied West Bank,” said Amy Greer, one of Khalil’s attorneys.
Original article published in Peoples Dispatch.
