My name is Mahmoud Khalil

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.

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 22Columbia
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.