Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian activist arrested over the weekend in New York, will remain in a Louisiana detention facility under Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Khalil was apprehended on Saturday at his New York residence and moved to a detention center in New Jersey before ultimately being transported to an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana. Khali has been accused of participating in the violent anti-Israel protests at Columbia University last spring and distributing terrorist propaganda.
The Trump administration revoked Khalil’s green card. Yet on Monday, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman temporarily blocked efforts to deport Khalil until both his defense team and the federal government appear in court.
Ramzi Kasem, an attorney for Khalil, spoke outside a Manhattan courthouse on Wednesday over the treatment of his client.
“We literally have not been able to confer with our client once since he was taken off the streets of New York City,” he said.
“He was taken by U.S. government agents in retaliation, essentially, for exercising his First Amendment rights, for speaking up in defense of Palestinians in Gaza and beyond, for being critical of the U.S. government and of the Israeli government.”
Khalil. 30, is married to an American citizen who is eight months pregnant. The administration has not officially charged Khalil with a crime, but he has been accused of distributing pro-Hamas literature on the Columbia campus.
Khalil’s wife, who has remained anonymous out of fear of retaliation, said in a statement that the past week has been a “nightmare,” adding her family has been the target of “an intense and targeted doxxing campaign” focused on “spreading false claims about my husband that were simply not based in reality.”
Khalil’s arrest is seen as a statement by the Trump administration that the U.S. will no longer tolerate public support of a terrorist organization.
“This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Furman said he will permit the defense team to have privileged phone calls with their client on Wednesday and Thursday of this week but has not yet made a decision as to where the case will be held.
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