Standing beside a recently released Mahmoud Khalil, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned Donald Trump’s administration for the “illegal” persecution of the Columbia University student, who was imprisoned for more than three months in an immigration detention center for his pro-Palestinian activism.
The New York congresswoman joined Khalil and his family at Newark Liberty International Airport Saturday for a press conference moments after his return.
“Because Mahmoud Khalil is an advocate for Palestinian human rights, he has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” she said.
Khalil was stripped of his green card and arrested in front of his then-pregnant wife in their New York City apartment building on March 8. He was then sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he was kept for months and forced to miss the birth of his child.
On Friday, a federal judge granted his release from ICE detention on bail while legal challenges against his arrest and threat of removal from the country continue in both federal and immigration courts.
“It is wrong, it is illegal, it is a violation of his First Amendment rights, it is an affront to every American and … we will continue to resist the politicization and the continued political persecution that ICE is engaged in,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“Everyone agrees that the persecution based on political speech is wrong and is a violation of all of our First Amendment rights, not just Mahmoud’s,” she added.
Khalil, who is Palestinian, grew up in a refugee camp in Syria. He entered the United States on a student visa in 2022 to pursue a master’s degree in public administration and emerged as a face of Columbia demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Trump administration officials have accused Khalil of “antisemitic activities,” allegations Khalil and his legal team have flatly denied.
“The U.S. government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,” he told reporters at Newark. “This is what I was protesting, this is what I will continue to protest with every one of you, not only if they threaten me with detention, even if they kill me, I will still speak up for Palestine.”
Speaking out for Palestinian rights is “speech that should actually be celebrated rather than punished, as if this administration wants to do,” Khalil said.
Officials concede that Khalil did not commit any crime, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sought to justify Khalil’s arrest by invoking a rarely used law claiming that Khalil’s presence in the United States undermines foreign policy interests to prevent antisemitism.
A judge’s order for his release is the latest in a string of high-profile legal losses for the Trump administration following the arrests of international scholars for their pro-Palestinian activism.
Their arrests sparked widespread outrage against the administration’s apparent attempts to crush campus dissent, while Rubio has said he “proudly” revoked hundreds of student visas over campus activism.
The Trump administration “knows they are waging a losing legal battle” against pro-Palestine students, and are “violating the law” to build a campaign against them, Ocasio-Cortez said.
Lawyers for the Trump administration appealed the order for his release on Friday night.
A spokesperson for Homeland Security called the order “yet another example of how out-of-control members of the judicial branch are undermining national security.”
