Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is released after spending over three months at a Louisiana detention center
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil arrived in Newark, New Jersey, Saturday afternoon, a day after he was released from the Louisiana ICE detention center where he has spent more than three months after he was arrested outside his apartment on Columbia University’s campus.
“Still, the fight is far from over,” Khalil said while thanking his supporters at a news conference at the airport. “I continue to advocate for Palestinians, for the immigrants who are left behind in that facility.”
Wearing a keffiyeh – a scarf seen as a symbol of Palestinian identity and resistance – a grinning Khalil pumped his fists as he walked out of the detention center Friday evening with one of his attorneys. Since March, he had been detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the rural town of Jena, Louisiana.
“Although justice prevailed but it’s long, very long overdue, and this shouldn’t have taken three months,” Khalil told reporters outside the detention center, adding he couldn’t wait to reunite with his wife and newborn son.
Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release on bail Friday after finding he is not a flight risk or a danger to public safety. The judge said it’s “highly unusual” to be seeking his detention at this point.
The judge also cited several “extraordinary circumstances” in Khalil’s case that led him to order his release, including “that there is a due process violative effort to punish” the Columbia University graduate who played a central role in negotiations on behalf of pro-Palestinian student protesters last year.
Khalil “is not a flight risk, and the evidence that has been presented to me at least is that he is not a danger to the community, period, full stop,” Farbiarz said.
Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who is married to a US citizen and has not been charged with a crime, was one of the first arrestees in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown targeting student activism. As his case dragged on for over 100 days, several other student activists targeted for deportation by the Trump administration were released....
Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, said in a statement that she can “breathe a sigh of relief” knowing that Khalil will be reunited with his family after missing the birth of his first child during months of detention at a facility over 1,000 miles away....
“The court concluded there’s no reason he should continue to be detained given the serious harms that are happening, the chill that is happening to his speech and other people’s speech as a result of his detention,” one of his attorneys Baher Azmy told CNN Friday....
As the case played out in immigration and federal courts, the administration has argued that Khalil should be deported because his presence in the United States threatens the administration’s foreign policy goal of combatting antisemitism. His lawyers contended that he was targeted for his pro-Palestinian views in violation of his constitutional rights.
“There is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner. And of course, that would be unconstitutional,” Farbiarz said Friday....
Khalil’s wife said the ruling doesn’t begin to address the injustices their family has been through but said she’s “celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.”
... When asked if Khalil will continue to protest when released, Azmy said: “He’s a peace activist, he’s an international human rights activist, and he’s Palestinian, and I don’t expect he will ever stop advocating for justice for Palestinian people and an end to their continued slaughter and starvation.”
Poor babies.
I love us. Saturday: