Palestinian Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil decries arrest in the US

In his first direct remarks since his arrest, Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who the US government wants to deport, described himself as a “political prisoner.”

After returning from a dinner in New York on March 8 with his pregnant wife, US citizen Noor Abdalla, the student activist was detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Khalil criticized his arrest and the conditions in US immigration facilities in a letter released on Tuesday.

“I am a political prisoner, Mahmoud Khalil, and I. I’m writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana, where I spend long days observing the undercover injustices that are occurring against a large number of people who are not subject to the laws’ protections,” Khalil wrote. He continued, “The agents threatened to arrest her]Noor for not leaving my side,” adding:

According to the footage released by his family last Friday, the DHS agents withheld information about his arrest and took him into custody without a warrant.

Khalil wrote in his letter that “DHS would not tell me anything” because “I did not know the reason for my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation.”

Khalil is a lawful permanent US resident, according to his attorney, Amy Greer. Experts have emphasized that only in serious crimes are serious threats to deport green card holders.

Students from all over the US mobilized in April 2024 to demand that their universities stop playing a role in Israel’s Gaza war, which came after an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in southern Israel in October 2023, which saw the deaths of 139 people and the capture of more than 200 people as result of the massacre.

Almost 50 000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 110 000 others have been injured as a result of Israel’s relentless ground, air, and sea military campaign, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. More than ten thousand people are missing and are thought to be dead beneath the rubble of destroyed structures. Israel’s occupation of the besieged territory was criticized by a UN committee in November last year as “using starvation as a method of war” in line with the characteristics of genocide.

Trump’s vehement response

Demonstrations at New York’s Columbia University attracted particular attention from the media as anti-war protests grew nationwide.

No proof has been provided, but Khalil, who was a key player in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the university, has been charged by the administration of US President Donald Trump with engaging in “activities aligned with Hamas”

Without providing any proof, Trump has accused the student protesters of engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”

Khalil claimed that his arrest was the result of his activism for a free Palestine and the end of Israeli occupation of Gaza.

He wrote in the letter that “my arrest was a direct result of exercising my right to free speech by calling for a free Palestine and the end of the Gaza genocide,” which took place on Monday night.

Khalil also compared his situation to Israeli administrative detention, where Palestinians are frequently imprisoned without trial or charge.

“Palestinian prisoners are frequently imprisoned without a fair trial.”

He claimed that he would not allow anyone to silence him, adding that it was “our moral obligation to continue fighting for their complete freedom.”