Palestinian Political Prisoner Mahmoud Khalil Releases Statement from Louisiana ICE Detention Center
Mahmoud Khalil • March 18, 2025
Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder with permanent
residency, has released his first public statement since his arrest on March 8.
He was taken into custody by plainclothes Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
officers in the lobby of his Columbia University apartment complex due to his
alleged connection to Hamas. His statement, released Tuesday, was dictated by
phone to family members from an ICE center in Louisiana.
Khalil, who has not yet been charged with a crime,
said he is a “political prisoner” and expressed concern with the political and
social climate in the United States that led to his arrest. He and his lawyers
argue that his arrest and detainment violate his constitutional rights to free
speech and due process.
Khalil’s wife, who was present at the time of his arrest, is eight months pregnant and unsure if he will be
present for the birth of their child.
His full unedited statement reads as follows:
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.
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