On Wednesday, in a positive development in the case of the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leading figures in the protest movement on U.S. college campuses against the Israeli war on Gaza, a federal judge ordered the case to be transferred to a court in New Jersey from Louisiana, the hardline state chosen by the Trump administration for Khalil’s deportation proceedings.
Khalil, 30, who was arrested on March 8 at his Columbia University residence in New York, was briefly held in New Jersey before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Jena, Louisiana. His arrest sparked ongoing protests.
Federal authorities had pushed to move the case of the graduate student to a strict immigration court in Louisiana. However, a judge in New York instead decided to transfer the case to a New Jersey federal court.
“The government first moved Mahmoud to Louisiana, then tried to transfer his federal case there as well, hoping to increase its chances in court,” said Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at City University of New York (CUNY) and co-director of CLEAR (Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility), a nonprofit legal organization representing Khalil.
“The judge rightly rejected this approach and referred the case to a court in the Greater New York area, near Mahmoud’s residence — where the case, and more importantly, Mahmoud himself, rightfully belong,” he added. “We intend to bring him home soon.”
Khalil recently graduated from Columbia and is a prominent voice in pro-Palestinian protests at the school. He was detained by U.S. immigration authorities despite confirmation from the university’s student union and his lawyer that he holds a green card (permanent residency). He is married to an American citizen and expecting his first child in the coming weeks.
No charges have been filed against Khalil. The government merely revoked his permanent residency due to his involvement in protests.
His arrest angered opponents of the Trump administration and free speech advocates, including some conservatives who believe such actions could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
In a moving letter published by the Guardian, Khalil described the harsh conditions he faces at the detention center in Louisiana, emphasizing that he is being targeted for his political views and support for the Palestinian cause.
According to his family, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security raided the building where Khalil lives with his wife — who is in her eighth month of pregnancy — and arrested him as he entered the building, without a warrant. He was handcuffed and forced into an unmarked vehicle.
Khalil affirmed that his arrest was a direct result of exercising his right to free speech, as he had been advocating for the liberation of Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza. He pointed out that justice is absent from U.S. immigration detention centers, where he encountered other immigrants denied basic rights — like a Senegalese youth detained for a year without trial, and another man brought to the U.S. at age 9 who was deported without a hearing.
Below is the full text of Mahmoud Khalil’s letter, dictated over the phone from his federal detention center on March 18, according to the Guardian newspaper.
Mahmoud Khalil at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the campus of Columbia University in New York, April 29, 2024 – AP File photo
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I’m a political prisoner
A letter dictated by Mahmoud Khalil over the phone from an ICE detention center in Louisiana.
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 9, 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.
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.
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 — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.
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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